I have been making naturally dyed Easter Eggs for years, and it is always fun to see the colors that you can create from nature. This year I saw some Onion Dyed Easter Eggs on Pinterest that had leaf patterns imprinted on them. I decided to make some of my own, using herbs along with a wider variety of natural dyes. Here are my natural herb stenciled Easter Eggs!
They came out even better than I expected, and weren’t too difficult to make either. Pantyhose are used to hold the herbs tight against the eggs during the dying process. Although the original project used blown eggs I hard boiled my eggs, because it seems simpler to me, and because my kids love hardboiled eggs for a snack. Here is how I created the Easter Eggs.
Herb Stenciled Easter Eggs
Materials:
- A dozen eggs
- Turmeric
- Red cabbage
- Onion skins
- Herbs – cilantro, parsley, dill
- Old nylon stocking
- Rubber bands
- Saucepan
- Mason jars
Directions:
- First, I hard boiled 8 of the eggs.
- I made two different natural dyes using turmeric and red cabbage.
- For the turmeric I added 1 Tablespoon of turmeric to 3 cups of water, and boiled it for half an hour.
- For the red cabbage I cut up about 2 cups of cabbage, added 3 cups of water and boiled it for half an hour.
- I drained the red cabbage water and cooled both dyes, and put them in mason jars, adding 1 Tablespoon of vinegar to each jar.
- To make the pattern on the hard boiled eggs I laid herbs flat on them. I found it was easier to make the herbs lay flat if both the eggs and herbs were damp. I used cilantro, dill and parsley, and the cilantro was the easiest to work with.
- Then I cut pieces from the leg of an old pair of stockings, and rubber banded them around the eggs. The stockings hold the herbs in place.
- Finally, I put the stockings into the mason jars of dye, and refrigerated them. I let the red cabbage eggs soak for 24 hours, and the turmeric ones for about 8 hours. Longer soaking would have given even deeper colors.
- Once they were done I cut off the stockings to reveal the pattern. The turmeric gives a pastel yellow color, while the red cabbage eggs are a pretty blue.
- The onion skin eggs were even easier to make, since I knew from experience that I could hard boil the eggs right in the dye water and get rich deep color fast.
- For this I prepared four raw eggs with herbs held in place by stockings.
- Then I put a cup or so of onion skins in a saucepan with 3 cups of water, and added the 4 raw eggs right to the pot. I added a tablespoon of vinegar, and boiled the eggs for 15 minutes, and then cooled them in a bowl of ice water, with the stocking still on.
- They came out a gorgeous deep orange color.
I love these eggs – they almost look too good to eat!
These are on my Easter egg to-do list…well, minus the natural coloring because I would have never thought of that on my own. These are adorable!
These look so stunning, what a fabulous idea! I love that you can dye eggs naturally.. but using herbs for stencils is just brilliant.
Wow! They are beautiful!
Those are just gorgeous! You make it look so easy and they came out so well!
These are beautiful. Definitely trying this!
Those are SO beautiful. I love them. They’d look so lovely in a basket as a centerpiece on a table.
I love this! I saw a pin the other day with these, but there was no instruction about how to make them. What a fun Easter egg project!
I need to try this with my daughter this year!
Those are so pretty. I love the designs. I would have never thought to use herbs as stencils!
What an amazing idea. I must try it with my daughter. Who thought about herbs as stencils
These eggs are wonderful! I love the herb designs!
I have never thought of doing anything like this, but it is a great idea.
Hi! Stopping by from the Happiness is Homemade link party. These are very pretty and the technique is so clever! Thank you for sharing!
These are so gorgeous–I had no idea that boiling onion skins would turn the eggs a lovely orange. Thanks so much for sharing this. 🙂
Those are so beautiful and unique! They look amazing – I love the rich colors!
I’m loving these differen Easter egg ideas. This is a favorite too, how neat!
This is so neat and it’s great that it’s all natural. I’d love to feature this next week, but can’t find if you have a link party page or party links anywhere else. Thanks for sharing this at the Craftastic Monday Link Party at Sew Can Do!
Beautiful colors. I love these for a rustic Easter look.
Saw this on the Share It link party. It’s very creative, have a blessed week.
I love how the colors these eggs turned out – A great Easter science experiment with the kids, especially with cabbage. You could even add beets for a pink dye!
These are gorgeous! What a great idea to use herbs, pinning to try. Thanks for sharing at What’d You Do This Weekend? 🙂
How beautiful! Will absolutely try this next year.
Coolest idea of the day! Love the creativity!
Cathy
I always thought it would be fun to let the kids pick something natural to dye the eggs with. Would they dye okay even if we didn’t let them sit for 8-24 hours? I know my kids wouldn’t be as patient as I am to wait for the beautiful natural colors.
What a very clever way to create beautiful Easter eggs. I pinned this and will be saving it for next year’s dyed eggs. I’ve come to visit from Foodie Friday. Happy Easter.
These are so amazing! I love the creativity an ingenuity you used to create the silhouette.
This is a lovely idea, never seen something like this. I need to try to make this at home =)
Thanks for linking up to Tasty Tuesday, I’ve pinned this great recipe to the Tasty Tuesday Pinterest board.