For a few years we have dyed eggs using natural materials such as beets, cabbage, onion skins, and coffee. It is fun to see what kind of colors we can get using things we have at home. This year, however, the boys both gave me 'the look' and obviously wanted to do something different. While we usually dye our eggs for the spring equinox, pretty much any time is a good excuse to play with eggs and colors, in my opinion!
I found Greek egg coloring packets at a local Italian deli, and knew we had to try them. They looked super intense, AND there was red (a traditional Greek Easter egg color), my favorite color. Using regular 'egg' cups I combined the powders with vinegar and water and we were off. The boys used oil pastels and wax resist crayons to color the eggs first, and then soaked them in the colors. Oh, and yes the colors were indeed deep and bold. We mixed red and blue for purple and it was so dark it almost looked black. That was of course the favorite, in addition to the deep red ones.
After the boys were done I just couldn't bring myself to pour all that rich color down the drain, so we found a few blank silk scarves and dunked them in the pots for awhile to see what we would get.
We now have a few brightly colored silks - perfect for spring!
21 comments:
Beautiful!!!
That's my kind of Mama!
;)
Wow, that's incredible! "the look" ha ha ah that's so funny, I know it well. I HAVE to try to find this Greek egg colouring you're talking about. Wow, they are so amazing. That's one thing my kids commented on with the dye tablets, they are not deep enough in colour. Great silk too :)
I've never seen egg dyes those colors before. Those are really cool. The silks turned out beautiful, too. It's very clever to use the left over egg dye for fabric.
fabulously brilliant!
I love your silks! I too hate to throw away that lovely dye. We usually make coffee filter butterflies out of our leftovers. I am going to try silk or wool though I think. I am loving the almost black looking ones!
Gorgeous! Love the scarf idea. We haven't dyed eggs in a couple years, can you believe that?
But one tradition that Zeb loves is the Easter scavenger hunt - DH hides clues in plastic eggs, one egg leading to the next and the next until at the end he finds his "basket" (which at his age is really one gift instead of a basket). This year I think it will be more LEGOs.
~Tara
I'm going to hunt for those colors for another year. We leave brown eggs in the dye for a long time and get some really warm colors which I like.
Those eggs and scarves look great! That color really IS bold. The red is really beautiful. We don't usually dye eggs, but we're going to do the natural dyeing today. I hope they turn out well!
wow! beautiful! and i absolutely adore the silks. that was a good call.
I love the effect you got with the oil pastels/wax resist.....
The silks are beautiful too.
Enjoy your weekend :0)
I love it! Great job reusing the dye to make spring playsilks. Very creative!
Hope your back is feeling better.
That was smart to dye the silks at the same time. The colors are beautiful. I think we'll be dying eggs today or tomorrow.
Great eggs! Amazing colors.
Wow! Those are really beautiful eggs! I want to find some dyes like that! And what a great idea for the left over color. Your scarves look beautiful! I hope you have a wonderful weekend!!
Lovely! Happy Spring~ :)
Wowzers! Great stuff!
I'm SO bummed that I forgot to order my silkies from dharma trading to use in our Spring baskets instead of plastic grass. And your tie dye's would have been such a great idea! Maybe I'll just have to get a cheap silk alternative from the fabric store for this year!
Love those depp, rich colors!
That Greek Easter-egg red is the best!
Oh how beautiful! A Greek deli huh? Interesting. Blessings.
I love the black egg! And, beautiful scarves.
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