Natural Dyed Easter Eggs
Dyeing Easter eggs is one of our favorite Easter traditions. Recently, I have been in awe of all these beautiful natural dyed Easter eggs all over Pinterest. This is something that I have been wanting to try it for a few years, but for one reason or another it has not happened until now.
How to make Natural Egg Dye
After reading a few posts on which combinations of veggies and fruits created the best colors, we stated chopping. We chose to use blueberries, spinach and beets.
We placed our eggs in boiling water, vegetables and vinegar, and boiled for 30 minutes.
Most of the posts I read, strained the veggies from the dye. I decided to skip that step and place my eggs in along with all the chopped up veggies. I’m not sure if that was where this little project went wrong or if it was something else…but check out these muted colors.
The front 2 eggs were dyed in blueberries. The left 2 eggs in spinach and the back 4 eggs in beets. I was expecting bright beautiful eggs, however we ended up with muted and dull colors. Weird.
The kids claimed the eggs looked like potatoes, bummer. Totally not the look I was going for. I guess I should keep trying. Anyone else tried natural dyed easter eggs with good results?
OK, so they’re not the bright colors you had in mind, but they *are* pretty, in an understated, Martha Stewart kind of way!! =)
Our naturally dyed eggs turn out more muted than the dye-packs of my youth. Haven’t been on Pinterest lately to see any comparisons, but we do the food stuffs with water to cover, boil, then transfer to a glass and add a splash of vinegar to each glass. Beets are usually a winner for us. Here are my color notes from the past few years:
yellow onion skins = dark yellow
red onion skins = light purple
coffee grounds or walnut shells or chili powder = dark brown
beets = magenta
red cabbage = dark pink
cranberries = pale purple
blueberries = blue/purple
grape juice concentrate = lavender
tumeric or ground cumin = yellow
didn’t work well: carrots, spinach leaves, orange peel
Hi,
I think there’s something refreshing about the natural colors – as opposed to the neon colors available from the tablet dies – although there’s a place for both!
One thought might be that there was too much water in your dye preparation. I found this suggestion “But, before you add the vegetable or fruit to your pan, place an egg in the pan and fill it with enough water to cover the top of the egg by at least an inch. Then remove the egg. Don’t add more water. If you use too much water, the color of the dye will end up being too diluted.” Here: http://bigsislilsis.com/2010/04/02/natural-dye-colored-easter-eggs/
Be sure to check it out. What they do with leaves and flowers brings another level of interest to the naturally dyed eggs. I can imagine our kids would have so much fun finding their own leaves.
Happy Easter!
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my mother dyes eggs with vegetables this is the Romanian recipe for red color. u can use onion leaves or red beet. we use onion most often, first u peel 1kg onion and leave the leaves in 2-3 liters of water for 12 hours(overnight). then you add 2 spoons of vinegar and boil them for 15 minutes. if they don’t turn as red as you want you have to leave them in the colored water for more time(not boiling then, just let them cool in that colored water. with beet you can either boil 2 beets medium size into 1 litre water and chech often because they get too dark. this will make a non uniform color. or you can boil the beet in water let it cool for a little bit and then leave the eggs there for a while it will get an uniform color. in both cases you have to add 2 spoons of vinegar when boiling the water. i don t know if this project it’s fun for kids though because it requires patience. i mean the thing is if they don’t turn as colored as you want you have to leave them in tha colored water to cool and chech from time to time. you can wipe them with a napkin and a little bit of oil to make them shine(the oil will be absorbed quickly and you can eat them.
oh, and that red from onion is blood like, not to bright, a little bit brownish. also a trick is to put each egg into a pantyhose with a leaf and make designs on them like in this pictures. http://bianca-maya.blogspot.ro/2010/04/cum-facem-noi-ouale-rosii.html
Thanks for the tip. We will have to try that next time:)
We just tried dying eggs naturally. Ours came out pretty good! Did you use white vinegar? We used it in some and not in others. The eggs with the vinegar were way more vibrant! Here is our experience:
http://alexa-cade.blogspot.com/2014/04/today-we-colored-our-easter-eggs.html