Our family has had a wonderful experience at our children's preschool, Acorn Hill. Unless there is a thunderstorm or it is frigid, the children go outside every day. The classrooms are filled with beautiful handcrafted toys made from natural materials, the snacks are healthy, the changes of seasons are celebrated, and the art projects are beautiful. I love it.
To celebrate spring, the teachers make beautiful dyed eggs and wool bunnies to send home with the children. The eggs are exquisite, colored with onion skins, and very simple to make.
For many years now, we have been dying our eggs at home using onion skins and other natural dyes. I have used red cabbage in the past, which turns the eggs a pale blue, but we had a large bag of blueberries in the freezer, so I decided to try them instead this year. I prefer dyes that are edible because we often make egg salad with the cooked eggs. I'd love to hear from any of you who have tried this at home. What other dyes have worked for you?
This year, I used the onion skins for a deep reddish brown color, turmeric for yellow, and the blueberries which colored the eggs a dark gray tinged with a bit of violet, or as Chloe said, the color of a storm cloud.
I found my onion skins at the bottom of an empty crate at the farmer's market; you can find them at the bottom of the onion bin at your favorite store or market. If not, you can always buy several onions, use the skins, and save the onions for another day.
Just before starting the process of making the eggs, gather flowers and leaves from the garden. Any small plant will do. We used vinca, forsythia, oat grass, and lots of weeds, which, as our neighbors can attest, are plentiful in our yard.
You can easily make two dozen eggs with the same batches of dye if you use pots that are large enough to hold the additional eggs. We used both brown and white eggs this year. The brown eggs will take the color, but the contrast with the pattern is less vivid. I do not boil the eggs first, but if you are working with very young children, you may wish to do that so that any dropped eggs will not be too messy.
Our children love to make these eggs. Olivia is old enough to do them independently; Oscar and Chloe needed help with the tying. They enjoy going out to the garden to gather the flowers and leaves, decorating the eggs, lowering them into the pots, and untying them to reveal their designs.
Natural Egg Dyes with Botanic Prints
approximately 4 cups onion skins
1 tablespoon turmeric
1 cup blueberries
1 1/2 cups cider vinegar, divided
1 dozen eggs, preferably white
1 dozen pieces cheesecloth cut into approximately 6-inch squares
1 dozen pieces of thread cut into 6 inch lengths, or twist ties
Place the onion skins, turmeric and blueberries in separate non-reactive pots and add enough water so that an egg placed in them would be submerged.
Select the plant that you would like to use for your egg and place it in the middle of a cheesecloth square. Place the egg on top of it, positioning it carefully so that the plant will leave its impression where you want it. Pull up the corners of the cheesecloth and twist them together tightly. Tie them together with a piece of string or a twist tie. Lower the wrapped egg slowly into the dye of your choice. Continue in this manner until all of the eggs are bundled.
Add 1/2 cup of cider vinegar to each pot. Bring each pot to a gentle boil and simmer for approximately 15 minutes. Gently remove an egg from each pot and check the color. If you want a darker color, add more vinegar to the pot and let it simmer a bit longer. Let the water cool and cut the cheesecloth off each egg. Gently rinse the eggs. If you like, you can polish them with a bit of oil, but do this very carefully so the color does not come off.
i think that if i will not bring but i will make more kinds of those eggs with different kinds of plants that i see somewhere else. sincerely katie
And from her mama, these look gorgeous. we definitely need to try this at home.
laura
Posted by: cherrypatter | April 09, 2009 at 10:53 AM
Love O's nail polish!
Posted by: Carey | April 09, 2009 at 12:00 PM
Laura and Katie,
I'd love to see what plants the Brooklyn parks have to offer. Enjoy!
Carey, You need a teal fingers franchise!
Posted by: Margy | April 09, 2009 at 02:47 PM
Is it spoiling the surprise if I mention that you can often get a beautiful starburst (for lack of a better word) from where the cheesecloth is tied?
These are lovely. I bet the egg salad will be pretty tasty, too!
Posted by: Andrea | April 10, 2009 at 01:55 PM
Any ideas on why my red cabbage dye won't affix to the eggs? Tried more and more vinegar.......house stinks and eggs are still white.
Posted by: Julie | April 10, 2009 at 07:49 PM
Hmmmm, Julie, I haven't had that problem. I have had the color come out quite pale, even with the vinegar, but never not affix at all. Could it be the eggs? Maybe transfer them to an onion dye, which seems to be failsafe? Sorry! Best of luck,
Margy
Posted by: Margy | April 10, 2009 at 08:34 PM
Thanks so much for posting this. I've done this before, but your beautiful pictures inspired me to do it again, with two other mamas and eight kids total. We got some beautiful eggs. BTW, when I did it before the red cabbage worked, but this time I had the same problem as the above commenter, absolutely nothing. So when the kids weren't looking I snuck a little blue icing gel in the pot. Maybe different varieties of cabbage behave differently, who knows?
Posted by: Rachel | April 12, 2009 at 09:58 AM
- This is so funny, I eat hard boiled eggs every once in awihle on my salads. But Kelsey LOVES eggs and I have been meaning to make her hard boiled to see if she likes them. I never seem to get it just right. I will write this down and hopefully be as lucky as you to make the perfect hard boiled egg! Thanks!
Posted by: Bradley | April 14, 2012 at 04:16 PM