HOW TO NATURALLY DYE EASTER EGGS

I finally did it!  All growing up we dyed Easter Eggs naturally with my Swiss Grandmother and ever since I\’ve always wanted to do it myself but I just never had the time or energy or both.  This year I was determined to try out some new ideas and dye my own Easter Eggs and I\’m so glad I did!!  They turned out beautiful, and just look at this lovely boquet of produce:

We actually had much of this on hand from bountiful baskets so it wasn’t hard to supplement the extra.

Growing up we always tore up leftover fabric and wrapped the eggs with lilacs and dandelions we found in the yard, layering the fabric over.  I loved how well pantyhose worked instead!  It only took one pair to cover 20ish eggs.  My girls gathered some leaves from the yard and I found a bouquet of flowers at the store I knew would work beautifully.  They helped me smoosh the flowers up against the eggs and wrap the pantyhose bands over.

I found several blog posts (here and here) to help guide me with ideas.  We always used onion skins to dye eggs and I wanted to see what other colors we could achieve.  My sweet birdies lay brown, blue and green eggs anyway so it was fun to put in a few of theirs and see how they would turn out dyed on top of their already fun colors.

Hibiscus made me the most curious…I couldn’t wait to see how it turned out!!

I put in just enough water to cover everything and a Tablespoon of Vinegar and boiled it all for 15 minutes.

Look at that color!!  I love beets.

After (from some great advice from another blogger) I poured the eggs and the remaining liquid into glass/metal bowls and labeled them so I could remember what colored them.  I sealed them up and stuck them all in the fridge after they had cooled and waited until the next day to see the results.  This is what produced such vibrant colors!!

This lovely blue was brought to you by purple cabbage.

Carrot Tops + Yellow Onion Skins (yes, carrot tops, not carrots).

Spinach makes a lovely light green.

So cool!  This is what hibiscus can do!

My personal favorite.  This is a combination of blood oranges and purple onion skins.  I can’t get over how vibrant this green was and how amazing it looked with the flowers!!

Yummy Turmeric.  Turmeric Tea has become a favorite at our house.

Red Beets!  I was really excited about these as well!

Golden Beets. You can see that the middle one is blue underneath-that’s one of my chickens eggs!

This was the prettiest Easter rainbow.  I think to simplify next year I\’ll only make a few different colors (my faves), but it was so fun to see the possibilities!

Does your family do natural dye?  What’s your favorite?