There are so many things to love about Easter weekend, but one of my favorite activities is dyeing eggs. They’re color you can eat! Mr. Magpie & I don’t have kids, but that doesn’t stop me from whipping up a couple dozen of these pretties every year.
After seeing so many gorgeous examples of naturally-dyed eggs on Pinterest, we decided to ditch the food coloring and experiment with the contents of our fridge.
The spotted grey-purple eggs were dyed in an overnight-bath of grape juice and vinegar. Vinegar is an acid and it reacts with the calcium shells, which produces a neat mottling effect.
To make the bluish-teal eggs, I filled a stock-pot halfway with water, added a cut-up head of red cabbage, and boiled the whole mess until the brew was nice and dark. (And stinky. Pee-ew cabbage.) Then I added a few teaspoons of baking soda, cooled & strained the mix, and dunked the eggs overnight. I hear that adding vinegar instead of the baking soda makes a pretty pink-purple. Chemistry, FTW!
I also tried to dye eggs with tumeric & paprika, but the color didn’t really stick to the eggshells. In all cases, the overnight eggs + dye-baths were kept in the fridge, as we plan to eat these all week.
I just love how unique each egg becomes. How about you? Are you experimenting with natural dyes this weekend?
show hide 2 comments