Mama Gone Green is a blog dedicated to raising happy children and reducing our impact on the Earth. My name is Taryn and I am the mother of 2 young kids and an environmental studies instructor at a community college in Portland, Oregon. Please join me as I journey through life as a mama, teacher, knitter, photographer, gardener, and environmentalist!

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Adventures in Natural Egg Dying Take 2!


I spent this morning in my kitchen (aided by finn, of course!) in my second annual experiment to dye eggs using natural, plant-based dyes. And (drum-roll.......), I would say that it was a success! Or, at least an improvement from last year's experiment!
This year I used red cabbage, spinach (which was unsuccessful) and an onion skin-tumeric combo. For each dye color, I mixed my plant materials, 4 cups of water and 2 tbl. white vinegar. I brought it to a boil, then simmered it for an hour. After the water cooled back down, I put uncooked eggs into the water, brought it to a boil for 10 minutes and then let the eggs sit in the water for another hour after cooking to try and absorb as much color as possible.
The red cabbage eggs came out a beautiful bright blue (my favorites). The spinach did not work at all.. I think I needed A LOT more spinach to get a real green color, but I had already used quite a bit. So, the spinach eggs, after not turning green, were set into the red cabbage water for about an hour. They turned a white-blue combination that ended up pretty nice. The last round I used onion skins, but didn't have quite enough to give the eggs a vibrant color so I ended up adding about a tablespoon of tumeric before boiling. I think the combo worked out well!
Rhythm of the home has a nice little egg-dying tutorial here, if you want a more experienced opinion than my own! Pin It Now!

2 comments: