naturally dyed easter eggs

This was our second year making natural egg dyes using vegetables and teas. It is SO easy and so much fun to make! It does take a little bit of time, since you have to cook the dye, but it’s well worth it. The colors are beautiful!

To make the dyes, use 2 TBSP of spice, 3 tea bags, or 1-2 cups of cut vegetables. Place in a saucepan and add about 8 ounces of water and 2 tsp of vinegar. Cook on medium low for about 30 minutes. Strain the vegetables out or remove the tea bags and place in a container to cool. Make sure that you label your dyes!

Also, I know that sometimes the amount of vegetables/tea/spice can seem like a lot, but you want this to be very concentrated. If your dye is weak, your color will be light.

Pink - beet

Burnt Red - red onion skins

Deep Orange - red and yellow onion skins

Orange - yellow onion skins

Yellow/Gold - turmeric powder or tea

Green - hibiscus (tea or dried petals - I combined them, personally), or turmeric and then dipped in blueberry

Blue/Purple - wild blueberry (I used frozen, because it’s what we had on hand)

Blue - purple cabbage

The longer that you leave the eggs in the dye, the more vibrant that the color will be. The pastel ones soaked for about 15-30 minutes. The deepest, most vibrant colors soaked overnight for about 11 hours.

Before soaking your eggs, make sure that you cover your workspace if you are working with kids. This is an easy way to keep the dye from getting into wood surfaces. We just put down art paper over our kitchen table. So easy and it made cleanup super easy as well!

This is such a fun tradition for our family! And as a bonus: it’s really cheap. We had almost everything already in our home, so we only spent about $5 on the eggs, purple cabbage, and beets. You can combine colors for your dyes, double dip, test out other plants - endless options!