Rather than using pre-made coloring dyes, why not learn how to make your own natural Easter egg dyes?
Children love creating and searching for colored Easter eggs. They’re as much a part of celebrating Easter as chocolate bunnies and baskets.
Natural egg dyes may not be as vivid as artificial dyes but they’re every bit as beautiful.
Be sure to check out all of our Easter activities and crafts!
How to Make Your Own Natural Easter Egg Dyes
Natural egg dyes can be made from a variety of foods, flowers and plants.
The dye is transferred to the egg either while boiling the eggs or, as with normal dyes, after the eggs have been hard-boiled.
When boiling the dye with eggs, be aware you’ll be limited to the number of colors you can do at once by the number of eyes your stove has.
When dyeing the eggs while boiling, you place the coloring ingredients into the pan of water which covers the eggs.
Include a teaspoon of vinegar for deeper colors.
If you’d rather dye the eggs after they’ve been boiled, cover the eggs with water and a teaspoon of vinegar, and then add the dyeing ingredients.
TIP! Allow the eggs to sit in the dye in the refrigerator overnight for the richest colors!
TIP! Allow Easter eggs to sit in the dye in the refrigerator overnight for the richest colors! Click To TweetNatural Easter Egg Dyes Recipes
Here are various ingredients you can use to create the colors you want for your naturally dyed eggs:
Lavender
Violet blossoms plus 2 teaspoons lemon juice, Red Zinger tea, or a small amount of purple grape juice
Violet blue
Small amount of red onion skins placed in the water while boiling, violet blossoms, hibiscus tea, or red wine
Blue
Purple grape juice or canned blueberries added to the water and placed in the refrigerator, red cabbage leaves placed in the water while boiling.
Green
Spinach leaves boiled with the eggs
Yellow
Any of these can be boiled with the eggs: orange or lemon peels, carrot tops, celery seed, ground cumin, or ground turmeric.
To get the same color with the cold method, add green or chamomile tea to the water.
Orange
Boiled yellow onion skins; cooked carrots, chili powder, and paprika will result in the desired color in the cold method.
Brown
Black walnut shells boiled with the eggs, or you can add strong coffee, instant coffee, or black tea to water in the refrigerator.
Red
A large amount of red onion skins boiled with the eggs.
Using the cold method, add canned cherries in their juice, pomegranate juice, or raspberries.
Pink
Use any of the following, added to water and placed in the refrigerator overnight: beets, cranberries or cranberry juice, raspberries, red grape juice, or the juice from pickled beets.
Remove the eggs from the water, place them in an egg carton, and let them dry.
If you’d like your eggs made with natural Easter egg dye to look shiny, you can rub vegetable oil into the egg shells to give them a terrific gloss.
Perhaps, after learning how to make your own natural egg dyes, you won’t even bother with the prepared dyes you can buy at the store!
More Home Ideas for Easter
Get ready for Easter with these terrific home ideas and tips for the holiday!
Very cool! I love this idea! Thanks for sharing!
These are lovely! I am pinning 🙂 Can’t wait to try them out!
Great idea!
How fun & just in time for Easter! Stopped by to do some sharing, thanks for linking up with us at #FoodieFriDIY!
You got some very nice coloring on these! Beautiful idea! Thanks for sharing this with us on Throwback Thursday last week!
Mollie
Wow these are some wonderful ideas, pinning this to my Easter board, thank you for sharing!
I LOVE these ideas for natural egg dying! Definitely going to have to try some. Visiting from Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop.
Thanks for stopping by! And let me know which colors you choose to do 🙂
Maybe not as simple as just buying the store bought dye, but this would make for a great science experiment with kids to show them how the colors transfer. Thanks for the list of how to make the different colors.
Definitely not as simple but lots of fun to do and discover 🙂
Such a nice idea to use natural dyes for coloring eggs. Thank you for linking up with us @ #HomeMattersParty. We would love to see you again.
How pretty are those? It would be fun to dye our eggs with natural dyes this year! thanks for sharing at Throwback Thursday!
We’re always up for trying something new…. going natural just seemed like a fun thing to do and good for the kids.
I love the colours. Thanks for sharing with us at #OvertheMoon. Pinning and sharing. Have a great day!
Exactly what I’ve been looking for!!! Thanks for making it easy and compiling it all in one place for me. Pinned!
Love dying eggs with my kids and doing it naturally is way more fun. Yours turned out beautifully! Thanks for the ideas!
Thanks for linking up at the Pretty Pintastic Party! I love the idea of dying eggs naturally, so I will definitely be trying this out! We loved your idea, so it will be featured at the party this weekend. I hope you’ll stop by, grab a featured badge, and link up some more fabulous posts!
Beautiful! Thank you for sharing this with us at Funtastic Friday link party.