*image courtesy of www.allrecipies.com/article/natural-easter-egg-dyes/
A fun activity we do with the kids every year when Easter is around the corner is dye eggs. The process of dipping, drawing and painting to create the most colorful, little ovals for our dining table centerpiece was such a delight. Although, cleaning up afterwards wasn’t received as equally. We were using those artificial food dyes that would stain my fingers and more often than not be speckled all over my clothes (one year we thought it would be fun to see how dark we could dye our tongues – yea, don’t judge). And I do find myself cringing, when I think back over what is found in the conventional dyes ingredient index. In our house, we try to make as many small positive changes for our well-being and our kids. So, for example, anything artificial or containing toxic ingredients that’s an easy swap is a no brainer, obviously, swapping it for a more eco-friendly or healthy alternative.
The weeks leading up to Easter my kids and I would collect scraps we could use to dye our eggs the natural way. So, beats for a nice red color. Turmeric for an orange hue. Purple cabbage for a bluish tint. Onion remains will provide a soft yellow color. And different types of flavor tea bags can produce different results based on what type you’ve chosen. Then you boil the food scraps in its own pot of water and once you have the color you fancy you remove the scraps, place the liquid in its own container and add your hard-boiled egg. Depending on how rich of color you would like you can place the eggs in the desired colored liquid for 3 hours or as long as overnight. Then voila - you have colored eggs.
However, we ended that tradition real quick. Who has the time for a 3 day egg dying experience? Unfortunately, (or fortunately?) not my family. It’s also quite a chore to tackle different methods of dyeing part of the egg one color and then another part a different color. Trust me explaining to your 4 year old the complexity and waiting time for 6 different colors on one egg, fast forward to the good part, it ends in a trip to the ice cream parlor.
So, after our one time go of the natural way, I found a great natural egg coloring kit here.
Which, is a more efficient option for our family to enjoy egg dying the natural way without the massive time commitment. And a HUGE, HAUUGEE bravo to you, if you and your kiddos are all in for the full-fledged soup-to-nuts egg dying experience. I can admit it, I’m a little jealous. Whichever way you decide to partake in egg dying, memories are sure to be made.
