Friday, April 20, 2012

Easter Egg Dyeing Lessons

I read all about Easter egg dyeing and how to do it with natural dyes already existing in plants and spices. So I gave it a whirl.
Yellow: Paprika
Pink: Beet juice
Green: Spinach
Orange: onion skin & Paprika
We had everything on hand.

I peeked on them after 6 hours of sitting in the refrigerator and they looked like they were changing colors gradually and by 8 hours they were at their best.

(Foreshadowing: this is where it goes downhill!)

Olivia liked plopping the eggs in and since we had a playdate earlier in the week where the dyeing was almost immediate, she was a little(!) irritated about having to leave the eggs in for a while.

Well, we had two families over (so there was a total of 7 kids at our house) and we ate and played then had an Easter egg hunt and whew--cleaning up afterward then I slept!

That means the eggs had a nice long soak overnight in the vinegar solution with the dyes...which started to erode the shells. When I got the eggs out I washed them off and any color left on the eggs completely washed off the now very thin shells.

But I liked the jars the eggs were dyed in. Aside from the plastic applesauce jar with the paper peeling off of it. : )




Next year, I think we'll just go with the bright and fast dyeing. : )

2 comments:

  1. The jars look nasty. Sorry. But I also liked the idea of natural color. Just didn't happen to try it this Easter. In fact, when we dyed our eggs, my friend brought beet juice and insisted on trying it. We tried two eggs and I then went back to the "bad" quick and dirty artificial color as well. Maybe you have to add something (vinegar?) or upheat the color? I have no idea. Thanks for sharing this important lesson! ;))

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  2. Lol-I meant I just liked the jars themselves. I think the jars look nasty also with the eggs in them--kind of like a science lab. Ew.

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