Natural Egg Dyes

Happy Easter! Cody had a blast decorating his easter egg craft!

I posted on Monday about all the fun Easter things we were doing in our house this week to celebrate and another mama mentioned she had information on natural egg dyeing. I never thought about the egg dyeing kits I have used in the past because I assumed the dyes wouldn’t permeate the egg, but they DO!! She also mentions if you have little ones who are still “mouthing” a lot of things they will probably be putting their dyed fingers in their mouth (never thought about that one either!!) So if you are wanting to limit the dyes in your families diet or just limit what they are getting in their mouths through their hand, then read mama Lindsay’s guest post on dyeing eggs naturally!

Last Easter I remember dyeing eggs with my then 3 year old. He did a great job at following directions and we dyed all the eggs without incident! This year all I can think about is that my youngest son, (20months!) will love dyeing eggs, and I can already picture the dyes going into his mouth after he sticks his finger in the coloring cups! I started to research something this morning and I came across a ton of information on naturally dyeingeggs! I would have never thought to use food to dye eggs! It is definitely the perfect solution tostaying away from all of the artificial coloring dyes! Here is a list of colors and what foods to use!

Red—Red onion skins (more than for purple), cherries
Orange—Yellow onion skins, chili powder (for a brownish orange)
Yellow—Turmeric, orange peel, lemon peel, carrot tops, cumin
Pink—Beets, red grape juice, cranberry juice, frozen raspberries

I found all of my information at Organic.org. The website also has all the directions needed on how to prepare foods to dye eggs! I am very excited to try this with my kiddos this week! Maybe I will even get lucky and they will sample enough egg dye to get a few servings of fruits or veggies in!

What a great idea Lindsay! I LOVE IT! After she emailed this to us I started thinking about what I will do with the dollar kit I bought. I don’t want it to go to waste and Cody is past the stage of really putting his hands in his mouth so I figure I will still use our kit and use the eggs as a table centerpiece. I have an old shoe box (I have a million boxes scattered in my house right now since we are moving soon!!) so I figure we can decorate that and put the eggs in it and lay it on the table for a cute centerpiece (I just have to make sure Cody knows NOT to eat them!!) This topic of natural egg dyeing really got me thinking and I wanted to see if Whole Foods carried natural dyes. They do, although they are completely sold out. They did, however, have a fun little natural egg dyeing class that I took Cody to yesterday morning. Here are a few things I learned:

Here is Cody’s naturally dyed egg from grape juice!

• Wash your eggs in warm soapy water to remove any oily residue
• Let eggs cool before dyeing
• Once your eggs are dyed, for a textured look, dab the still wet egg with a sponge
• Eggs colored with natural dye have a dull finish. You can rub eggs with cooking oil or mineral oil to give them a soft sheen
• For coloring: see the instructions above “how to” OR you can mix an organic juice (like grape, beets, carrots etc.) and mix half vinegar/ half juice and then put your eggs in the cup and soak! The longer you soak the darker your color.
• Other coloring fun:

1. Blue: canned blueberries, purple grape juice
2. Brown or Beige: Coffee
3. Green: Boiled Spinach Leaves
4. Orange: Carrots, paprika, boiled onions
5. Pink: beets, cranberry juice, rasberries
6. Yellow: boiled ground cumin or tumeric

For these things that aren’t just juice Whole Foods recommended: 1 cup water for every handful of dyestuff. Bring the water just to a boil, and then reduce the heat to low. Simmer @15 min. or up to an hour (until you have reached your desired color). Remove pan from heat. For each cup of strained dye add 2-3 tsp of vinegar. Pour into a dish and let cool. Color eggs as desired!!