Natural Easter Eggs

I avoid artificial colors in the things that we eat like the plague. This year I decided that should apply to our eggs as well, not because I'm concerned about leaching through the shell, and not because I feel the need to control every bit of food that we take in, because I don't, but because it seemed like an easy thing to get on top of, and the more natural we can be, the better. So last year when we dyed eggs the house smelled of boiled eggs and vinegar, this year it smelled of cabbages and beets.

The colors weren't as brilliant as I thought they might be, and our results were different from others I've seen online, we did the project as a family and we had a good time. A really good time.

Natural Egg Dyeing

Red: Three beets, cut into slices. Bring to a boil and simmer in four cups of water, 1 tablespoon vinegar, for 30 minutes. Strain and reserve liquid. Cool.

Blue: One pound red cabbage, shredded. Bring to a boil in four cups of water, 1 tablespoon vinegar, for 30 minutes. Strain and reserve liquid. Cool.

Yellow: Four tablespoons turmeric dissolved in 4 cups water, 1 tablespoon vinegar (it dissolves easiest with a little heat).

The natural dyes took way longer to really work than the standard dyes. I anticipated this by putting the dyes in big bowls so we could get them all done at once.

We decorated them with crayon first, just like we've always done. Though I thought the red would be my favorite, the blue actually worked the best. And they were all fun.

Comments

[Julie]

They came out beautiful:) I love the colors you get with natural dyeing, just so unique. It's been a few years since we've done it.

[meghann]

How lovely! I wanted to do natural dyes this year but on Friday I realized I didn't have anything except turmeric handy. So we used food coloring & vowed to use natural dyes next year. Yours turned out so beautifully! xo