Natural Easter Egg Dyes
by Diane Heeney - 4dacres@byelectric.com
Description: How to make your own Easter egg dyes.
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This Easter you might want to try something a little different
for dying
eggs. Many things can be used besides commercial dyes. Boil
yellow
onion skins for bright yellow eggs. Red skins can also be
used.
Tumeric also makes yellow eggs. Beet and grape juice
produce pinkish
to blue eggs. The most fun is boiling red cabbage. It
makes
almost a robin's egg blue.
Unsweetened Kool-aid will also stain well. I've had my
own hens
for several years. If you are buying eggs for dying, try to
obtain local
farm eggs. They are not treated with oil, as are the
commercial eggs,
and take the dye much better.
I have in the past made Ukranian eggs. You dip the egg
in strong
colored dyes, and cover your design in wax. The contents
are not
blown out, but left to dry and rattle. I have broken them
years later,
and there was no odor. You can make "wooden appearing" eggs, also
leaving
the contents in, or hard boiling the eggs. You leave the
contents
in so the egg doesn't float. Make a solution of very strong
coffee
and place the eggs in it. Set your container in an out of the way
place.
As the coffee evaporates, it makes rings on the eggs. It's
like a
box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to
get! Friends
who have made them report no odor, either way, however I wouldn't
let a
toddler break one, either.
Reprinted with permission.
