Natural Dyed Easter Eggs

Traditionally, the Armenians and Greeks dyed their eggs red for Easter, using the papery skins of yellow onions. The red eggs symbolize the blood of Christ.

I dyed my eggs yesterday, and they turned out beautifully!

First, I took the skins of about 5 or 6 yellow onions and boiled them in water for at least 30 minutes.

The liquid is then strained out...

...and the result is this orange color.

I added two tablespoons of white vinegar.

After the water is cooled, I put in the eggs and boiled them for 5 minutes, then turned off the heat and let them sit for a half hour, absorbing the color.

For variance of color, I pulled out some of the eggs earlier. They are a nice orange color.

After the eggs are cooled, they are then "polished" with olive oil.

Aren't they beautiful?

Bigsislilsis

What I also attempted to do, but failed miserably was to dye my eggs like this!

I saw this idea in April's Country Living magazine.

Blogger Sonia Bauer from Bigsislilsis.com wrote an article about dying Easter eggs with natural ingredients, even using flowers and Country Living put her right on the cover!

She said that purple cabbage makes blue eggs. However, my eggs didn't absorb the dye for some reason. The water was intensly purple, but it probably was too diluted.

It looked like a lot of fun, so I gathered leaves from the garden to decorate the eggs.

Laying the leaf on the egg....

...pantyhose is then wrapped around the egg before boiling.

Like I said, I failed miserably with this idea too!

Bigsislilsis

If I had read the article before attempting this project, I would have known that the pantyhose must be wrapped tight and secured with a twist tie. Also, wetting the egg before putting on the leaf makes it stick to the egg better.

Bigsislilsis

Here is how her eggs looked before she dyed them.

Bigsislilsis

The end result!

The step by step instructions are here.

Although the blue botanical eggs didn't turn out, the red ones did.

My Mother-in-law will be happy to see that I honored the old tradition of dying eggs red.

Later today, we will have the traditional Armenian "egg fight!" More on that later....

Happy Easter!

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