A Step-by-Step Afternoon Workshop
No sewing required. You start with a plain cotton tote and press flowers into it.
Imagine walking into the farmers market with a tote bag no store has ever sold. White canvas scattered with rust-orange and deep green cosmos and one palm-sized chartreuse bloom, every single print made by a real flower you hammered into the cloth yourself. No two bags on earth like yours.
Imagine someone stopping you to ask where you got it. "I made it," you say. "With a hammer." They laugh, then they look closer and realize you are serious. The petal edges are all there. The leaf veins are all there. That is a real flower pressed into the fabric, and they have never seen anything like it.
Imagine doing it again next weekend for almost nothing. A two-pack of totes costs about ten dollars, and the flowers are already growing in your yard, or sitting in the grocery store herb aisle for a couple of bucks. Different plants, different bag, same hammer.
Not just tote bags
The tote is just your first canvas. The same technique works on plain tees, button-down shirts, silk scarves, and sundresses. You start on a tote bag because it's cheap and forgiving while you learn.
A favorite white tee
A leaf-printed tee
A whole button-down
All real pieces, all real plant color.
The Smart Way In
This workshop starts you on a plain cotton tote bag on purpose. It is the perfect first canvas:
Get your practice swings in on a five dollar bag. By the time you pick up a silk scarf or a sundress, your hammer will already know what it's doing.
Meet your instructors
Theresa Brown is a longtime ecoprinter and fiber artist. She has spent years pressing plant color into fabric in just about every way it can be done, and she teaches this workshop the way she works at her own table: relaxed and completely unfussy.
Kristi Thompson picked up flower pounding a couple of years ago as a complete beginner, and it took hold fast. Now she is the one running the experiments: discovering that dill prints like green lace, that grocery store herbs keep her printing straight through winter, and texting Theresa photos every time a new plant surprises her.
Together they cover both ends of the craft: a seasoned fiber artist who knows why every step matters, and a recent beginner who still remembers what confused her on day one. Kristi's daughter Raina assists on camera and supplies the proper Japanese pronunciation of tataki-zome.
The workshop
The Japanese Pound Dyeing Ecoprint Workshop is a complete, step-by-step video course that takes you from a blank cotton tote to your own botanical-printed bag in a single afternoon. Everything happens on camera, in real time, and no step gets glossed over.
You'll set up a simple pounding station on an old cutting board. You'll choose flowers and herbs that actually print (and skip the pretty ones that disappoint). You'll lay everything vein-side down, tape it flat, and hammer the color straight into the cloth. Then you'll peel away the spent petals, heat-set your prints with a regular clothing iron, and give the bag a short cure so it can go through the washing machine.
And once your first bag is done, the same swing works on scarves, shirts, and sundress hems. The hammering never has to be relearned; what changes is whatever you clip from the yard that morning.
What's inside
Five video lessons plus a bonus, all of it filmed at the worktable.
Module 1
Meet tataki-zome, the Japanese art of flower pounding, and see the before-and-after you'll create: a plain cotton tote transformed into a one-of-a-kind printed bag in an afternoon.
Module 2
Set up your pounding station with tools you already own. Almost everything on this list comes straight from your kitchen and garage.
Module 3
A guided tour of the plant table: which flowers are packed with pigment, which herbs leave the finest detail, and which plants will surprise you.
Module 4
The heart of the workshop: a full, real-time pounding session where Kristi builds a bag print by print while Theresa coaches from the side. Follow along swing for swing.
Module 5
Lock your prints into the fabric with a regular clothing iron, then learn the short cure that makes your bag machine-wash safe.
Included free today
Kristi's favorite canvas is an old dress shirt her husband handed her. She pounded it, washed it, and pounded it again, and it keeps getting better. This bonus lesson shows you how to treat everything you make as a living piece.
A printable field guide to what's worth pounding. Fifty flowers, herbs, greens, and foliage plants that print on fabric, with notes on what each one gives you.
The offer
The Japanese Pound Dyeing Ecoprint Workshop
5 video lessons · 2 bonuses · Lifetime access
One-time purchase · Lifetime access forever
Start this afternoon with flowers from your own backyard.
You don't have to make the final decision now. Get instant access today and pound a practice bag this weekend. If at any point in the next 30 days you decide this craft isn't for you, send us one email and your money comes back within 24 hours. We won't ask what happened, and there's no form to fill out. You're only trying it.
Questions
One last thing
We filmed this workshop the same way you'll experience the craft: in one afternoon, with flowers cut from the yard and herbs picked up at the grocery store. When a brand-new plant surprised us on camera, we left it in, because the surprises are the best part of this art form. There is no right or wrong here. You pick things, you pound them, and you find out what nature had hiding in its leaves.
The flowers for your first bag are growing in your yard right now, or sitting two aisles into your grocery store. Pick a handful and see what they leave behind.
Theresa & Kristi
The Japanese Pound Dyeing Ecoprint Workshop
5 video lessons · 2 bonuses · Lifetime access
One-time purchase · Lifetime access forever
Pound Your First Botanical Tote Now Secure checkout · Instant access · 30-day guarantee