• Home
  • About
    • Contact
  • Blog
  • Subscribe
  • Shop

Real Life at Home

  • Learn
    • Printables and Worksheets by Age and Subject
    • Homeschooling
    • Book Lists for Kids
    • Play
    • Teaching Life Skills
  • Create
    • Crafts and Projects for Kids
    • Easy DIY and Projects
    • Homemade Gifts
  • Holidays
    • Valentine’s Day
    • St. Patrick’s Day
    • Lent
    • Easter
    • Mother’s Day
    • Father’s Day
    • Independence Day
    • Halloween
    • Thanksgiving
    • Christmas
  • Printables
    • Printables and Worksheets By Age and Subject
    • Exclusive Printables for Subscribers
    • Terms of Use
    • Coloring Pages
    • Word Search Printables
    • Crossword Puzzle Printables
  • Recipes
    • Easy Recipes Index
  • Catholic
    • Catholic Printables
    • Catholic Activities
    • First Communion
    • Catholic Monthly Activities
    • Catholic Word Search Printables
    • Saints and Heroes Printable Packets
You are here: Home / Projects / DIY and Projects / How to Make Homemade Natural Easter Egg Dyes

How to Make Homemade Natural Easter Egg Dyes

March 26, 2017 By Angie Kauffman · Disclosure: This Post May Contain Affiliate Links. {I may be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.}

800 shares
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter

advertisement

Easter is coming and in our house that means lots of crafts and egg dying. Instead of using food coloring, we use natural Easter egg dyes. Natural dyes can be fun to use on paper, cloth and many other mediums, including Easter eggs!

Looking for a way to dye your Easter eggs naturally this year? Here are directions for how to make beautiful homemade natural Easter egg dyes. | Real Life at Home

advertisement

One of the best parts of using a natural dye is experimenting to see what color different materials produce. You can use a multitude of items to produce natural dyes. Vegetable peels, sticks, nut shells, berries, teas and herbs all work great.

Make sure you use ripe or mature fruit/plants. They have the highest amount of natural dye. Slightly past-prime berries also work great.

How to Make Homemade Natural Easter Egg Dyes

1. First, hard boil your eggs and refrigerate.

2. Create your natural Easter egg dyes by finely grating or chopping your materials. (Ideas for materials are featured below.)

3. In a pot, add dye material and enough water to come one inch above the material.

Teas and coffees can be steeped regularly, reducing water for richer dye. Berries can be mashed or juiced and used fresh, if desired.

4. Boil. The longer you boil, the more vibrant the color.

5. You will then want to strain your dye. If you like a textured look, you can use the dye unstrained.

6. Add 2-3 teaspoons of vinegar for every cup of strained dye or juice. You may choose to add water to highly concentrated dyes.

7. Pour the dye into a container that will allow an egg to be completely submerged in the dye. Canning jars work great for this and also allow you to easily see how colorful your egg is without completely removing it.

Note: You can mix the dyes to create more colors.

8. Carefully lower the eggs into the hot dye. Allow to set until desired color is reached.

9. If you plan to let the eggs set for many hours or overnight, be sure to put them into the refrigerator.

Natural Color (book)

Natural Color (book)

Materials for Making Homemade Natural Easter Egg Dyes

There will be a lot of variation in these colors, with some producing much deeper colors than others. Using natural dyes is a project best gone into with a spirit of experimentation and adventure. This makes it especially fun to do as a family!

Red or Pink Natural Dye

  • Juice from canned beets
  • Canned cherries with syrup
  • Raspberries
  • Lots of red onion skins
  • Red plums

Yellow Natural Dye

  • Turmeric
  • Lemon and orange peels
  • Celery seed
  • Cumin
  • Green tea
  • Carrot tops

Blue Natural Dye

  • Purple grape juice
  • Red cabbage leaves
  • Blueberries
  • Mulberries
  • Blackberries

Orange Natural Dye

  • Yellow onion skin
  • Chili powder
  • Paprika
  • Carrot peels

Purple Natural Dye

  • Red zinger tea
  • Red wine
  • Small amount of red onion skins

Green Natural Dye

  • Spinach leaves
  • Grass

Brown Natural Dye

  • Coffee
  • Black tea


Other Posts You Might Enjoy:

Easter basket cutout craft with free printable

Here is an excellent collection of Easter books, crafts, recipes, printables, and more for preschoolers and kindergarteners. This collection includes both religious crafts and books, as well as fun spring ideas.

Easy Easter Cupcake Decorating Ideas for Kids

Melissa is the mother of two crafty little girls.  She blogs their creative messes at HopeSprouts.


This post contains affiliate links. These don’t change the price you pay. When you shop through them, this site may receive a small compensation. Thanks!

Originally published April 2011; Updated March 2017

Join 35,000+ Other Awesome People

Subscribe to the Real Life at Home weekly newsletter to get our latest content, exclusive free printables, learning activities, and ideas for celebrating with your kids all year

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription. P.S. It's important that you confirm or you won't receive any more emails with free printables, fun tips, and other helps to make your life just a tiny bit easier.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

Powered by ConvertKit
800 shares
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter

Filed Under: DIY and Projects, Easter Tagged With: science

About Angie Kauffman

Angie, mom to three very fun kids, is the founder of Real Life at Home.  With degrees in elementary education (B.A.) and special education (M.S.Ed.), as well as being a former homeschooler, she is passionate about supporting both parents and teachers by providing printables, crafts, and activities to help children learn and grow.

Previous Post: « Easter Math Worksheets Packet for Preschool and Kindergarten
Next Post: 6 Tips For Stress Free Spring Cleaning »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Karen says

    April 18, 2011 at 8:56 am

    Thank-you those are great ideas for Easter! Karen

    Reply
  2. Shannan says

    April 19, 2011 at 1:06 am

    We are going to be doing it this way too.

    Reply
  3. Melanie says

    April 19, 2011 at 9:03 am

    That’s so funny that you blogged this! I have a post scheduled to post this afternoon on this SAME topic at goinggreenwithnoah.com! Yesterday I posted a blog on other ways that you can go green at Easter 🙂
    Melanie

    Reply
  4. Janet from Creative Writing says

    April 19, 2011 at 10:21 am

    Great ideas! Am printing these suggestions out for our holiday binder, where we store all our seasonal ideas. (That way we don’t lose them!)

    Reply
  5. Rachele says

    April 22, 2011 at 3:07 pm

    I loved this idea so much that I’m sharing it on my weekly posting, Do Something!

    Thanks for the idea!

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Coloring Easter Eggs says:
    April 22, 2011 at 9:12 am

    […] way of coloring Easter eggs I’d REALLY like to try next year is using natural dyes made from food. I think this will be a lot of fun, and Hanna will be a little older and it will be some good […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Meet Angie

Angie, mom to three very fun kids, is the founder of Real Life at Home.  With degrees in elementary education (B.A.) and special education (M.S.Ed.), as well as being a former homeschooler, she is passionate about supporting both parents and teachers by providing printables, crafts, and activities to help children learn and grow. Read More…

Search

Connect with Real Life at Home

  • Bloglovin
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Footer

  • Home
  • Subscribe
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclosure Policy
  • Cookies Policy
  • Terms of Use and Conditions
  • Disclaimers

Amazon Affiliate Statement

Real Life at Home is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com

Categories

© 2006 - 2022 Real Life at Home / Tiny Owl LLC. All Rights Reserved. | Built using the Genesis Framework and hosted on WPEngine.