Easter egg painting with natural dyes - Any left over cabbage or beets?

I decided to take a break from reno planning and have some fun dyeing Easter eggs. I crave bright, spring-like colours at this time of year and what could be more cheerful than colourful eggs? I got a short shopping list ready for Misha that included: two dozen eggs, paprika, red cabbage, turmeric, beets and coffee. I have also been saving some onions skins throughout the week so I could use them as well.

We hard boiled the eggs and started getting the dyes ready. We chopped up the beets and cabbage, boiled the onion skins and diluted the paprika and turmeric. In half an hour our vegetable based dyes were ready for the eggs.

Natural Easter egg dyes:  (from left) onion skin, turmeric, red onion skin, paprika, red cabbage, coffee, beets

We slowly dipped the eggs in the dyes.

We let them sit in the dyes for about 2 hours. The exciting part was taking the eggs out and seeing the colours.  The beet dye created this beautiful light pink egg and is one our favourites.

Another great one was the purple cabbage which created this gorgeous blue.

Oh...and let's not forget the coffee. It created a very consistent, lovely light brown colour.

Once we took them out of the dye we let them dry for 10 minutes. The colours seem to intensify once they dried.

The best part of these dyes are that they make each egg look unique as no two colours are the same.

Naturally dyed Easter eggs

We love the pop of colour on our dining room table. Our favourite thing to do during breakfast is to point out the colours we love the most.

Naturally dyed Easter eggs

Posting the 'how to' below. Have fun with it!

Mia

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How to:

Yellow onion skin – Peel the skin of 4-5 onions (the dry outer skin only). Boil them for 15 minutes in 2 cups of water. Add 2 tsp. of vinegar. Let it cool off.

(Bright orange)

Red onion skin – Peel the skin of 4-5 onions. Boil them for 15 minutes in 2 cups of water. Add 2 tsp. of vinegar. Let it cool off.

(Dark orange)

Turmeric – Add 2 tbsp. of turmeric to one cup of boiling water. Add a teaspoon of vinegar. Let it cool off. – MY FAVOURITE!

(Bright yellow)

Paprika - Add 2 tbsp. of paprika to one cup of boiling water. Add a teaspoon of vinegar. Let it cool off.

(Brown)

Beets – Chop two medium size beets. Add to 2 cups of boiling water. Add 2 tsp. of vinegar. Let it cool off.

(Light pink)

Red Cabbage – Chop a quarter of red cabbage into small squares. Add to 3 cups of boiling water. Add 2 tsp. of vinegar. Let it cool off. – MISHA'S FAVOURITE!

(Blue)

Coffee – Add one teaspoon of instant coffee to one cup of hot water. Add a teaspoon of vinegar. Let it cool off. – BEST OVERALL CONSISTENT COLOUR!

(Light brown)

TIPS:

·         You can create your own colours by dipping the egg into several dyes. We dipped an egg into the red cabbage dye to get a light blue colour and then we dipped the same egg into the beet dye to create a beautiful purple egg.

·         The longer you keep the eggs in the dyes the stronger and more consistent the colours will be. If you like pastel colours, keep the eggs in the dyes for 10 min; for stronger colours, keep them in longer.

·         Use containers slightly wider than the eggs for the dyes so the eggs don't touch the sides. This will help avoid white spots on the egg. Small mason jars work the best.

··       To get even colour coverage on the egg, dye it first in the coffee then put it into the colour              
      you want.