Dying Eggs with Onion Skins

Today, with the girls home on spring break, we spent a little time dying eggs. Most of our hens lay brown eggs, and some are a little dark for dying. We'll be using them in Sunday's breakfast. But we went ahead and used all of the light-colored brown eggs for dying, along with some (gasp) store-bought white eggs.

We used two different methods for dying. The first one is one of my favorite ways to dye eggs -- using leaves and onion skins. The process is fairly simple and not nearly as messy as using dye -- your fingers stay clean!

Here's what you'll need: 

• Green leaves, grass, and flower petals set aside in bowls (we experimented with herbal tea leaves, beet skin, and beet leaves, but found that the leaves and petals from the garden worked best).
• Brown onion skins (purple will work too, but they give more of a brown color, while the brown skins are more golden)
• Scraps of cloth
• Rubber bands or twine
• RAW white eggs
• Large pot for boiling eggs, and water to fill as needed

Layer grass and flower petals over the bare egg.  Wrap in onion skins (they may be easier to manage if you soak them in water first).




Wrap the entire egg in a piece of cloth and tie it snugly.  Place in pot and fill with cool water so that the water is about an inch above the tops of the eggs.

Cover and bring to a boil. Boil about 10-12 minutes. Drain, fill pan with cool water so that you can handle the eggs more easily, or allow eggs to cool before unwrapping.









Here's what they look like when they are finished... very subtle, soft shades, depending on what you use.












Method Two:

The girls wanted to use traditional PAAS dyes and try something they saw online. They wrapped boiled eggs in lace, then dipped them in dye to create lace patterns on the eggs. We found some lace scraps at our local Habitat ReStore, and cut them up. In some cases, they dyed the egg, then wrapped the lace on and dyed it again, and in other cases they used more than one color. Here are their finished eggs: