Ambatalia

Easter is next Sunday, and we’re planning on dyeing Easter Eggs, the holiday’s totally fun, messy activity that invariably yields charming results. Eggs become our blank canvas on which to improvise all sorts of gorgeous colors and designs. We love Ambatalia’s post on making your own plant-derived egg dyes out of ordinary foods, like onion skin for sienna and orange; turmeric for deep golds and pale yellows; blueberries or red cabbage for blues; coffee for browns. We’ve found that beets give lovely shades of pink and red. You can layer the dying process to mix colors: red cabbage dye followed by grape for purple…turmeric followed by red cabbage for lavender.

Ambatalia’s Molly de Vries found the simple directions on Squidoo (via Martha Stewart Living). Basically you just chop up the food, and boil it with some white vinegar (which makes the colors adhere better) until you get the depth of color you want, strain and immerse your eggs in the liquid dye. You can simmer the eggs right in the liquid to hard-boil them at the same time as coloring them OR you can steep hard-boiled eggs in room-temperature dye for subtler hues.

Ambatalia

The color guide on Squidoo has a great disclaimer:  “Natural dyes can sometimes produce unexpected results, so don’t be surprised if, for example, your red-cabbage dye yields blue eggs.”

WE LOVE UNEXPECTED RESULTS!!!

After experimenting with her dyes, De Vries devised ways to add designs to the eggs (Her photos tell the story)… To decorate we used masking tape, beeswax crayons and string for shibori effects…

Ambatalia

Play, experiment and have fun.”

Related post: (easter) eggs as blank canvas

happy easter…passover…spring

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