Can you naturally decorate an Easter egg?

here's something posted by another cafemomer that i'm gonna try this weekend ;-)

• lilacs.in.bloom
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Thanks for sharing the tip!

happy Easter!!!

Dana

Just in case anyone is still working to get their Easter eggs in order....here are some more recipes for natural dyes from Care2:

Red
Red onion skins, use a lot (boil with eggs)
Pomegranate juice

Orange
Yellow onion skins (boil with eggs)

Yellow
Lemon or orange peel (boil with eggs)
Carrot tops (boil with eggs)
Celery seed (boil with eggs)
Ground cumin (boil with eggs)
Ground turmeric (boil with eggs)

Yellow Brown
Dill seeds (boil with eggs)

Brown
Strong coffee
Instant coffee
Black walnut shells (boil with eggs)

Yellow Green
Bright green apple peels (boil with eggs)

Green
Spinach leaves (boil with eggs)

Blue
Canned blueberries and their juice
Red cabbage leaves (boil with eggs)
Purple grape juice

Violet Blue
Violet blossoms
Red onion skins, less amount than you need to make red (boil with eggs)

Lavender
Diluted purple grape juice
Violet blossoms plus squeeze of lemon (boil with eggs)

Pink
Beets, fresh or canned
Cranberries or cranberry juice
Raspberries
Red grape juice

Dyeing Eggs Naturally ~with onions, leaves & flowers~

http://green-mom.blogspot.com/2009/04/dying-eggs-with-onions-leaves-flowers.html

This was so amazingly easy I am shocked that this isn't the norm for everyone. This was much easier then I remember those easter egg dye kits being to use and make the colors stay.


You need is some flowers, leaves, onion skins, string of some sort if desired, some rag fabric, 2 bowls (one to put the onion skins in and one to cool the eggs in), and a pot to boil the eggs in.

We don't have any flowers right now :( so I had dh pick some up that were on sale on his way home yesterday. I will know next year to seed some early inside to use for this.

Once you have everything you need pu the onion skins in a bowl of water to wet them down. It makes wrapping the eggs in them much easier.

Then take an egg and add some leaves &/or flowers to it. You can do this by wrapping string around it, or wrapping the netting from the onion bags around them. Both work fine, but I really liked the way you can position things more randomly with the netting and the added bit of pattern the netting gives the final product.











 

 

 

Next you just wrap the onion skins around the egg, then wrap the whole thing up in a peice of rag.

 

 

 

 

 

After that you boil the egg but not like normal where once it reaches a boil you take it out and let it sit. We tried that numerous times and the colors just don't come off as strong. We ended up finding the most success by letting them boil for 20-30 minutes before taking them out and placing them in a cool bowl of water.

we let them sit and cool for 5-10 minutes, then carefully unwrapped the egg and set them out to dry. Be careful because some of the color from the flowers or leaves is still wet and will smudge or wipe off.

That's it! You now how beautiful naturally dyed eggs!

-the colors of some of these are a little mutted from the real thing, cause I was taking the pictures at night and the flash was making them look all white, so I was taking them without flash, which gave them a strong yellow hue. But you get the idea :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I was inspired to dye just a few Easter eggs...back when I was a kid, my family would make cascarones which are basically intact empty egg shells filled with confetti (which then you gently crack on someone's head). 

For full instructions on cascarones, check out the wiki on Celebrating An Eco Friendly Easter.  But...it just means you have to put holes at either end of the egg and get the yolk/white out (which of course you can cook with later).  It helps to blow through the egg, fyi.

I only tried two colors: red and purplish.  For the red, I went with beets...but unfortunately, I ran out of time kind of at the end so here's how the process went down...

1. Cook beets (took a while) in water
2. Pull beets out of water
3. Add vinegar to red beety water
4. Add in eggs
   
5. Boil (mine were in for about 15 minutes total and only got a light pinkish hue...I think it would have been more successful with longer time)
6. Remove careful
7. Let dry

For the purplish ones...I couldn't find canned blueberries in the store, so I picked up blueberry preserves and canned cherries. 

1. In a pot, I put about three heaping teaspoons of organic blueberry jam mixed with juice from the canned cherries and maybe about 6 cherries and added water plus a tablespoon or so of vinegar
   
2. I added my eggs to the mix and let them simmer/boil for really about an hour.
   
3. I took them out...fyi, they were a little sticky before they dried.  And presto!  Kind of purplish eggs.

So on the outsides, we have the blueberry/cherry eggs and on the inside, the very slightly pink beet eggs.

And then to finish off the cascarones, just fill them with confetti (you could even cut up junk mail), tape up the bottoms (or if you're feeling fancy, use some tissue paper), and there you go!
 

How fun!!  I can't wait to try these ideas out!!

Just to share the end result of my naturally dyed cascarones....