Easter is close at hand!

With Easter coming up, I'm going to get Kira involved in a fun way. We are dying Easter eggs this week and why not do something different..Typically you go to the store, buy the eggs and packaged dyes and come home. Hard Boil the eggs, and soak them for a little bit in the dye to get the color you want. However, outside of seeing the colors there really isn't anything fun involved in the process, or if there is, we can always make it better!

We're trying natural dyes this year! I found some ideas and gave them a shot! We won't see the final results for a few days but so far it was great, lets hope the color is as pretty as I've seen in some of the other blogs. 

The steps are as follows:

In order to give your egg a pattern with the dyes you'll need to wrap them in onion skin, and place parsley/Dill around the outside. Some of the eggs should be left WITHOUT onion skins and just wrapped in Parsely/Dill (You'll see why later) You need to make sure they are secure against your egg so wrap it with Kite string and tie it off. It should look something like this:

Next you get your dyes together by making them from vegetables, spices, and coffee!

Frozen Blueberries - Beets - Red Cabbage - Coffee - Tumeric - Paprika are the ones I've chosen to use for this year. If it works out well we will use more colors next year. Vinegar will be used in almost all of these colors - The reason for the vinegar is to help the eggs absorb the color into their shell. Using natural dyes will not change the taste of your eggs. Lets begin!

ALL OF THE EGGS WILL BE DYED IN RAW FORM - THEY WILL BE COOKED LATER.

Tumeric 3 Tbps - 2 Tbps Vinegar - Just enough water to cover the eggs in the solution.
Tumeric will give you a Yellow/Honey Color.

3 Beets sliced - 2 Tbsp Vinegar - Add water until the eggs are covered.
Beets make a beautiful red color.

Pomegranate Juice by itself. No Vinegar needed.
Makes a purplish colored egg

Red Cabbage chopped - 2 Tbsp Vinegar - Add water to cover eggs.

Makes a Cobalt blue color- Surprise!

Beets chopped with the eggs hidden in the mix. 

3 Tbsp Paprika - 2 Tbsp Vinegar - Add water to cover eggs. Stir mixture completely.

Makes a beautiful Orange Color - The shade is dependent on the Onion Skin color you choose to wrap the eggs in.

You can also use Strong coffee by itself, fill a bowl up to cover the eggs and leave them overnight.

ALL Egg mixtures should be left overnight for AT LEAST 2 days. You will get color, but the longer you leave them in the solution before you cook them, the richer your colors and the darker your patterns from the parsley/Dill/Onion skins. This is before you cook them - Once they've soaked for that long, you can cook each bowl individually till the eggs are hard boiled. Don't throw away the dyes or veggies just yet, you can still use them for more things.! ^_^

EGGS WITH ONION SKIN WRAPPED / DILL / PARSLEY - You'll want to use these ingredients:

Strong Coffee
Tumeric
Paprika

Pomegranate

EGGS WITH PARSLEY/DILL WRAPPING ONLY - You'll want to use these ingredients:

Spinach (For a green color)

Red Cabbage

Blueberries

Beets

We will see how these turn out and post them up in a few days.!