This Easter why not perk up the holidays with some beautiful Easter eggs dyed naturally. This is a fun experiment for parents and kids alike. The results are amazing; you will be surprised at the rainbow of color you can get from nature. Plus you get the bonus of no added chemicals or artificial dyes.
To start off, if you are using store bought eggs, you might want to wash them off with mild dish soap. Store eggs have a coating of oil on them that farm eggs do not. Washing the oil off allows them to hold the color better. But if you choose to skip this step it will still work.
Now gather your supplies. Here is a list of natural ingredients and the colors they make.
Red Onion Skins – soft lavender to red, depending on how long you
boil them or how many skins are in the pot.
Red Cabbage Leaves – a lovely shade of robin’s egg blue (yep, blue not red).
Beet Juice or Cranberry Juice – different shades of pink.
Dill seeds – brown – gold color
Grape juice – lavender
Strong coffee – different shades of brown
Yellow onion leaves, Turmeric, orange and lemon peels, cumin, carrot tops- yellow eggs
Paprika – orange eggs
Spinach – green eggs
Yellow Delicious apple peels – green/gold color
Blueberries – blue
Grass – green
To dye eggs that you can eat you will need:
White vinegar
Eggs
Water
Your choice of natural dye item
Here’s what you do:
1. Hard-boil your eggs.
2. Add 2 – 3 tablespoons of vinegar to a quart of water along with your natural ingredients. If it is a solid, like spinach you can use up to 4 cups. For spices you will need about 4 tablespoons. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes. Let cool then strain.
3. Dip the hard-boiled eggs into the dye. The longer they are in the more colorful they will be. Turn the eggs every so often so the color will come out even.
4. Allow to dry in egg cartons. Refrigerate eggs you intend to eat.
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