Flower Print Eggs with Easy Natural Dye
using ingredients you'll find in the kitchen and pantry
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Dyeing Eggs in Rome, Italy, Spring 2018
When I was growing up, we always used those supermarket kits with little tablets that dissolve in water and give brilliant colors. But after having kids, trying to do things in a way more inspired by natural materials and processes became really important to me, and dying eggs with chemical dyes just wasn't appealing.
So, I first made nature print eggs using natural dyes two years ago, when my daughter Lily was 4. She's now 6, and I have a son who is 3... and we're still using natural dyes to do our annual egg coloring!
This year we're in spending the spring in Rome, Italy... and we dyed eggs using our favorite methods here! It worked beautifully.
The cheapest pantyhose I could find was 2 euros a pair. I could only find brown eggs at the supermarket! After the fact I've seen white eggs in other stores, but the brown eggs came out quite lovely.
Unwrapping is the best part.
The original post from 2016 follows... read on for the photo tutorial!
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I've been a bit obsessed with decorating eggs with natural materials and dyes this year. It's great to do with my four year old daughter. I also love how they capture some of the ephemeral beauty of spring!
Here's how you do it. It's very easy, a great project for kids or adults.
You need:
--Nylon pantyhose
--String
--Eggs (You can use blown eggs or raw eggs)
--Flowers
--Natural dye plants-- this year I used red cabbage (1/2 head), yellow onion skins (from 3 lbs of onions), and powdered tumeric (about 2 tablespoons).
--White vinegar
Where to get flowers in early spring? This year in the Finger Lakes we found hellebores, crocuses, and snowdrops in the garden and in the nearby woods. If you are gathering wild flowers, make sure to only pick a few so that there are lots left to make seeds. You can also use store bought flowers-- supermarket bouquets that are a bit past their prime (and on sale) would be perfect.
Position a flower on your egg. Use water to moisten the petals and help them to stay in place.
Wrap the egg with a piece of nylon pantyhose. Pull it tight around your egg, holding the flower flat against the surface. Tie with a piece of string.
Prepare your natural materials. For the onions, peel off the outer papery layer. For the cabbage, tear the leaves into chunks, or roughly chop.
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| Purple cabbage and the nylon wrapped eggs in the stock pot. Those blown eggs want to float! |
Place the dye material in a large stock pot, and fill with cold water so that the eggs are covered. Bring to a boil. Allow to simmer for at least 1 hour. After one hour, turn off the heat, add 2 tbsp of vinegar per pot and allow the eggs to sit in the colored water until the desired color is reached. If you want a dark color, you might need to let it sit overnight.
The added benefit of this method is that your raw eggs will be hard boiled without an extra step. If you are dying blown eggs, you might need to put something on top to keep the eggs submerged-- a lid from a smaller pot might work.
Then, cut the nylon and peel off the flower to see your beautiful results!
Alternate method (or a method to keep the dying fun going): Boil the dye materials in the stockpot until reduced to about 1 quart of liquid. Strain and reserve the liquid. To dye your eggs, submerge for a couple hours or overnight, depending on how concentrated the liquid is and how dark you want your eggs.
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| Dying eggs in canning jars with the strained liquid. Left to right: onion peels, tumeric, purple cabbage. |
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Above: Crocuses with purple cabbage, Crocus on an egg dipped in the onion skin dye then soaked in tumeric, snowdrows on an egg soaked in onion skin dye, hellebores on a egg simmered in onion skin dye. |
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Above Left: grass in red cabbage dye, Above Center: leaves in tumeric dye, Above Right: Crocus in red cabbage dye.
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Other natural materials work well too! The left egg is myrtle, the other two are weeds in our yard. All of these eggs were simmered in onion skin dye.
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It is fun to experiement! This was a very unexpected result... we soaked some eggs in cranberry juice, and they came out not at all red, but etched, looking almost like fossils. Must be some kind of reaction at work, anyone know the chemistry of this? I can't really recommend it thought... the eggs in that batch are very fragile, three have broken already!
Another lovely flower egg: Hellebores in red cabbage dye.
Have fun! I would love to see your results, post them at instagram and tag @unlikelynest, #flowerprintegg.
