Natural Egg Dyes
By the time the spring holidays begin for our multicultural family, I’ve mostly recovered from what I call Chrisma-Hanu-Kwanza-kah and am ready to start our family’s tradition of natural egg dying. Eggs show up in all our cultures’ spring holidays, so this fun activity works well for us.
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Collect flowers
To make our eggs, we first go on a walk to collect spring flowers.
These flowers will be used to create the patterns on eggs. Some of the flowers and leaves will transfer their pigments, as well.
2. Prepare the Eggs
Next, we either cook or blow out the centers of the eggs. The best way to cook the eggs is to steam them for about 12 minutes and then place them in an ice bath. This is because the shells of steamed eggs are easier to remove than boiled eggs.
To blow out the eggs’ centers, use a sharp awl, shish-kebab skewer, or a thumbtack to poke and carve a hole at each end of the eggs. Place the egg to your lips and blow hard. The yolk and white will come out and the egg can be kept indefinitely without rotting. Your kids will be super grossed out by the process and that adds to the fun!
3. Make dyes
The make simple, natural egg dyes the can be mixed to create colors, we use:
blueberries for blue
tumeric for yellow
beets for red
We also use onion skins - any shade of onion skin gives a beautiful color when boiled.
Place the ingredients in separate pots.
Cover them with water and simmer gently to extract pigment for about 5 minutes or so.
4. Test dyes
My kids love this part! We use scraps of white paper (water color paper works best, but any paper will do). Torn edges will really show you the color.
If your color is too light, add more of your berries, herbs, beets or skins and stir. Test again in a few minutes.
Baking soda can be added to enhance the blue. Baking soda will turn the yellow orange (as seen below).
5. Wrap eggs
Using any porous cloth (ie cheese cloth or panty hose), place the flowers and leaves that you’ve collected over the eggs and wrap them tightly. Then you can submerge them into the dye pots and leave them in for at least 10 minutes.
6. Dry and unwrap eggs
Placing the eggs back into the carton, let them dry for a while. You will see the color change as they are exposed to the air.
After the eggs are somewhat dry, carefully cut the cloth and remove the eggs.
Gently peel away the flowers and leaves.
Gently rub dry to remove the plant residue.
Enjoy! Your eggs have been dyed using natural materials.
Want to learn more about plant colors? Here is one fun, easy project.
