Coloring eggs for Easter to celebrate new life in Jesus is a classic tradition. I thought it'd be fun to do a batch with my kids this weekend - to test an idea I had of using letter stickers:
Coloring Easter Eggs: Natural Dye TutorialAfter boiling 6 eggs, I dried them and adhered the letter stickers:
I tried natural ingredients - a first for me - to make my dyes. I googled to find a list of options. I started with blueberries. I heated a small handful of fresh blueberries with a bit of water and white vinegar. Then I strained it into about 1/2 cup hot water:
Next I tried cooking some spinach for green. I learned you'd need A LOT of spinach :-) to get a good green, as you can see mine looks more like pale yellow: 
My third choice was to be red/pink using cranberry juice ... but this ingredient ended up coloring the eggs brown. I took the one I had in the "green" and gave it a second bath in the blueberry to turn it aqua. 
Here are our eggs cooling and drying:
I really liked the mottled finish on my eggs, although you may try wiping them a bit for a more even finish. Lastly, I removed the letter stickers to see if my technique worked:
Yeah!!!! It did! :-) 
The kids thought this was pretty fun, so we'll color eggs again ... I think I'll do the kind where they color on them with crayons first! :-) AND we'll try some other ingredients so my daughter can get her pink eggs! Although she really liked the blueberry dye because it looked purple.
44 comments:
Great idea!! I think we will blow the eggs out first so we can leave them out for a long time.
Thanks!
Wonderful. I have never used natural dyes, we'll give that a try. Thanks for sharing!
beautiful!
I love the sticker idea!!! I can't wait to hatch a batch of my own!
oh, I just love it! I think we'll try it this week!
Thanks!
What a precious idea! Thanks so much!
Hugs.
Susan
AWESOME! MRS. JEANNE! THANKS FOR SHARING, IT'S A CUTE IDEA...
What a wonderful idea! Your eggs are beautiful!
I agree with Jinglebritches -- I think I'd like to do this again with blown-out eggs. AND as I mention in the post - work on my natural dye colors! :-)
I love the aqua color!
Those turned out great - especially since they were a first!
What a perfect idea! I have mounds of sticker letters lying around here... Thanks for the tutorial, the colors are so pretty.
~Misti
What a neat idea . . . I can't wait to try this!
Super cute! I'm going to do this and spell out my son's name!
Brilliant! I love the speckled look of the eggs! And what a wonderful way to bring the reason for this season into egg deorating. I love it. laurie
Love the natural dye concept! I had never heard of it! I will share this with my environmental health class!
They are beautiful--what a fun idea!
OH! I love this! :)
How beautiful and creative! I have never thought of trying natural dyes! Thanks for the fun idea! And, if you come to San Diego, let me know! We're going again at the end of the month :)
* Oh my!!! I am just THRILLED to find this!!! Our God-daughter & family are coming for Easter weekend, & I'm trying to think of a few little "fun breaks" for the kids to do when we're here at the house~~~ They're 5 & 7, & I think they'll REALLY enjoy this! (I know I WILL!!!) MANNNY, MANNNY THANKS!!! Linda
There will definitely be some of those Jesus eggs at our house this year. Think I'll try hollowing out some eggs for this treatment. Great, wonderful, fabulous idea. Love it! And love the way you displayed them! Thanks for the idea.
Blessings,
Linda
Brilliant and so sweet!
those turned out so pretty! great idea with the stickers!
These are so pretty. What a wonderful post. Have a lovely weekend.
Try beet juice for red or pink
I just wanted to tell you that I really appreciate your blog! I look at it all the time! What great ideas! I can't wait to get to a Hallmark store to check out your line!
So beautiful!
missy
What a wonderful way to decorate the eggs...with Jesus' name on them. I love it. I love your site and all your fun ideas.
Really good ideas and info! I linked to this on dabbled.org today : http://www.dabbled.org/2009/04/easter-eggs-12-interesting-ways-to.html
Wow...
(I "met" you through Lisa's ~PW~ blog when your line first launched and I've run across you again through another blog. Hi!)
The shell of onion makes very nice and strong brown color (you have to peel off dry yellow shell and boil it with a little bit of salt in water, you even can boil eggs in that mix).
This is beautiful! I hope you don't mind, but I linked to this entry on my own blog (don't worry, I gave you full credit). Thank you for celebrating the REAL reason for this holiday and doig it NATURALLY!
I LOVE all of your crafts and ideas! This is my ultimate favorite!! I can see this in neutral tones, or coordinating colors of my house, and leave out all year long! I also love the sticker idea...why didn't I think of that?!? lol Thank you for your ideas.
Thanks.
As a mom who has decorated eggs countless times, including natural dyes, why I never thought of the letter stickers is hilarious.
Thank you so so much. We will be doing this on Easter with the kiddies # 22.
( here from Ann V )
The eggs are beautiful! I came across your blog from Catholic Icing blog, but wanted to suggest beet juice for making a natural pink dye. Be careful though because it can stain big time. One beet will make plenty of dye.
Even though this is a craft idea, it does not reflect the biblical Jesus as our Passover lamb. Remember that the church did not teach Easter, nor did Jesus. Easter of origins came later and does not tell us about the Hebrew Jesus that said he would come on his Appointed times and reveal himself. One of those times is Passover and it has NO connection to Easter in the telling of the true event. Sticking with scripture alone and throwing out everything else is what we have to do to be talking about the SAME Jesus of the Bibles writers. The scripture says that we are to provoke our Jewish counter part with Jealousy...but how can we with a Pagan Jesus. THey just laugh because they recognize the pagan attachment to christianity. We have done just what they did with the gospel...they did not carry it to the Gentiles and the Gentiles have not carried it to them either. Which Jesus are you talking about...the traditional one that is not found in the bible?
And now I know why God has delayed me in coloring eggs this year. And to think...I almost decided to pass! This is so precious. I thank you dearly for the idea! Perhaps I'll post our finished project over at the Wellspring and send more traffic your way!
Came over from Ann's today. Blessed to have done so.
A Happy Holy Week to you.
I {love} this idea and I just discovered your blog. I was so impressed, I shared on my facebook page! Thank you!
This is beautiful ! eggs represent new life, and that life is given in Jesus. a great idea for Easter :)
This is such a beautiful post! I am going to borrow your image for my blog post and link it back to you :D
Blessins to you!!
xoxo
I think you'd get a good pink color if you used beets. (?) I just cooked some we picked the other day, and couldn't think of what to do with the peelings. Unfortunately, I composted them already! They had such a lovely color.
What a great idea!
This is great! I pinned this and blogged about it here -http://jamesandleighann.blogspot.com/2012/03/easters-fast-approaching.html
Lots of natural dye color recipes on this page: http://www.bhg.com/holidays/easter/eggs/natural-easter-egg-dyes/
This display is so beautiful
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