Dip Those Easter Eggs into Natural Dyes

One of the sad things about your children growing up is that they don't want to do crafts with you anymore. I miss the painting, the jewelery making, the plaster cast ornaments, but I miss making Easter eggs most of all. I still have a carton filled with eggs that the three of us made over the years and they are still beautiful.

You can hard boil the eggs, or make pin prick holes in both ends of the shell and blow the egg out and make an omelet or frittata with them. At least one of us (usually me) was always sick at this time of the year, so I often just hard boiled them.

My kids and I have decorated eggs just about every way you can think of doing it. We've painted them, stuck stuff to them, used artificial food colouring, used dyed crepe paper , and natural dyes. The artificial colouring creates some pretty lurid hues and is faster to do, but the natural dyes make beautiful, subtle colours that look, well, natural. It takes a bit of planning to get all the ingredients together, but you can get the kids in on that as well. Get them to search around the kitchen for things they could use to create the dyes. You can turn it into a bit of a science lesson without being doctrinaire.

Here are a few things you find commonly in a kitchen that can make up those natural dyes.

Red: Beets, cranberries

Orange: Outer skins of onions

Light Yellow: Carrot tops, orange or lemon peels

Dark Yellow: Turmeric

Blue: Blueberries, red cabbage leaves

Beige or brown: Coffee or tea

We always made up the colours first by boiling the ingredients in water and a tablespoon of vinegar, and then put them into bowls and dipped the eggs into each bowl as in the photo below. Later today Collin is going to share a funny video that shows you how to make the eggs directly in the pot with the dyes. My son, in particular, liked the "marble" effect, so we would always put some vegetable oil into the dye. That way you can layer the colours, always going from lightest dye to the darkest.

Photo credit: Joel Sartore/Getty Images

Take some time this weekend and make some wonderful Easter eggs with your kids, because in 10 years, they'll have other things to do.

Pop-culture quiz: Pat yourself on the back if you know who this famous mom and her two famous sons are in the photo above. Hint: Dad was famous too.

Difficulty Level: Easy

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