Happy Easter!

I decided to make my own dye using ingredients in my kitchen.  I found water, salt, vinegar, beets, red cabbage, red onions, yellow onions and turmeric. If you want to try this at home - here is a good article with instructions.  Here's another article.  Read them both and you'll be on your way to dyeing.

 

You'll be amazed how many dyes you can make from ingredients you have in your kitchen.

I started by making individual dye baths by boiling approximately one quart of water with the ingredients from my kitchen and 2-4 tablespoons vinegar.  I boiled the dye bath for anywhere from 30-60 minutes until I got a darker color than I wanted.  When an item dries, it ends up lighter than it was in the dye bath.  I strained out the food stuff and placed the dye in a glass cup.

Using beets, I got a nice pink. Unfortunately, the pink wore off.  I'm not really sure what happened here.  I think I needed about three times as many beets as I had.  Next time I'll know better.

Surprise!  Surprise!  The red cabbage turned my eggs blue.  I never would have guessed that.  Once again, I didn't use enough red cabbage so this one took forever to dye.  Afterwards, I read the aforementioned articles and realized I should have used nearly the entire cabbage.  That would have made my work easier.

Red onion skins turned my white eggs a nice golden brown hue.

Yellow onion skins turned my white eggs an orange-tan color.  Both onion skins dyed my eggs quickly and very deeply.  

Turmeric is a very easy way to get a bright shiny yellow egg.  If I had left it in longer, I would get a nice golden egg.

Next year I'm going to try again and add some new colors - or even just some more vibrant colors.  I want to get a green egg, so I'm going to try the red cabbage on a brown egg - or dipping the egg in both the turmeric and then the red cabbage.  

Happy Easter!

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Jane in London]

Now, the yellow onion skins turned your eggs the colour that eggs normall are in the UK: are your eggs white shelled?

[Stephanie]

Beautiful colors! A very different palette than the traditional Paz kit. (sjn821 on Rav)

[kathy b]

very very cool. You are so creative Jennifer. Happy passover, Easter and Spring.