The Rural Legend
Mar 23, 2021
Updated: Apr 3, 2023
Decorating eggs is one of our family's favorite pre-Easter activities. I usually purchase papier-mâché eggs for us to color or paint because I love being able to keep and display them from year to year. They remind me of when my son was a baby - first painting, and already making some pretty beautiful eggs!
This year I thought it would be fun to experiment with making some natural dyes with common foods. My son really got into the process and I had peace of mind that we weren't messing with any nasty chemicals!
I found dye-able plastic eggs at Target and was curious to see if natural dyes would work on those - NOPE! That was a major fail! So I boiled a few real eggs so we could experiment and see what would happen with our colors! I was so excited to see how beautiful they all turned out! I was very surprised at the colors produced by some of our food items. I'm giving you the simple step by step process so you and your family can do a little experimenting too!
I was shocked at how vibrantly blue these eggs turned out! I was also surprised that purple cabbage creates blue dye and not purple! Here's how to make it
Chop up one head of purple cabbage and boil with 4 cups of water for 15 minutes. Strain your liquid and pour into a glass jar or bowl. Let cool. Add 1 Tablespoon of vinegar to help set the dye and then add your eggs. I let half of my eggs sit for 3 hours in each jar and the other half I left overnight, so you can compare the color differences. Once my eggs were dry, I couldn't tell much difference between the 3 hour and overnight purple cabbage eggs. Now I want to experiment with dyeing fabric this gorgeous blue color!!!
I drained the juice off of 2 cans of red beets and added 3 teaspoons of vinegar to a jar. I don't know why, but my beet eggs have a gorgeous marbling to them. I certainly don't mind!
This one really surprised me! When I made the dye it was a raspberry pink color, and so were the eggs directly out of the dye. However, once the eggs dried they turned a really lovely olive green color that I was not expecting! Boil the skins of 5 large red onions with 2 cups of water for 15 minutes. Strain and pour into a glass jar or bowl and let cool. Add 3 teaspoons of vinegar and then add your eggs.
Boil the skins of 5 yellow onions with 2 cups of water for 15 minutes. Strain and pour into a glass jar or bowl. Add 3 teaspoons of vinegar and then add your eggs. I didn't expect such a beautiful color from yellow onion skins!
Note - wondering what to do with all of those peeled onions? Make my French Onion Soup!
This color is gorgeous! Mix 1 tablespoon of turmeric with 1 C boiling water. Pour into a glass jar or bowl and let cool. Add 3 teaspoons of vinegar and then add eggs.
To add another experiment to your egg dyeing, let an egg sit for a few hours in one color and then switch it to another to make a brand new color!
Do you prefer to decorate hardboiled eggs or artificial eggs? What do you do with all of your eggs when it's time to eat them?! Let me know in the comments! I hope you find some inspiration here to get your kids experimenting with you in the kitchen, or to simply have fun on your own with some of nature's gorgeous colors!
Later this week, I'm going to be using these natural dyes on WOODEN eggs and I'll show you how I styled a GORGEOUS Easter table scape with just a few simple DIY's! And bonus - they're all perfect crafts to make with your kids!
xoxo, L