When I was a kid, we colored Easter eggs every Spring.  We used those pre-packaged kits with little wire ‘dippers’ and brightly colored dye tablets.

But what did kids do before the invention of Easter egg coloring kits?  They colored eggs naturally, of course.

I love, love, love this project.  It’s an updated version of my original attempt coloring eggs with vegetable dyes, and then coloring eggs with onion skins.  And this version is even better!

Dying Easter eggs with onion skins, leaves and flowers is completely natural and produces gorgeous results.

It’s a simple, safe, natural project you can try yourself or with your children.

Not only do you get the experience of using natural colors, but you also get to go foraging for little leaves and flowers, and creating eggs that really capture the beauty of Spring.

Happy Easter!

How to color or dye Easter eggs with onion skins

You need:

• Eggs (preferably white, for best contrast)
• Old pantyhose/stocking
• Onion skins (top tip: you can get lots of onion skins in the ‘bulk onion bin’ in your grocery store.  There are tons of loose skins!  Just put one onion and a bunch of skins in your grocery bag, and you’re charged by weight, which was 15 pence for mine, brilliant!)
• Small flowers and leaves for decoration

How to:

Dunk the egg in a glass of water to get it wet.  Then, using a wet finger, stick on some of the little flowers and leaves in a pretty pattern.  I found that thinner leaves worked best for this.  Get creative, I used some coriander (cilantro) leaves that were really pretty!

Tie off a piece of pantyhose.  Now place the egg inside the pantyhose (I found it helpful to stretch the pantyhose quite wide, then place the egg in, to avoid moving the leaves around!)  Tie the other side of the pantyhose so the egg is firmly in place.  If you pull it really tight, you’ll get a little ‘star’ pattern where the pantyhose is against the egg.  This could be an added decoration, or annoying, depending on your design!

Now make hard boiled eggs … with onion skins.  Place the eggs in a pan.  Add a handful of onion skins.  Cover with cold water.  Bring to a boil.  Once boiling, turn off the heat, cover the pan, and let it sit for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, scoop the eggs out of the pan and place into a bowl (you can use the onion water again for a second batch of eggs!).  Cover with cold water and let sit for an additional 15 minutes.

Drain the cold water, and untie the pantyhose to reveal your egg.

Rinse off the leaves, and let dry.  Gorgeous!

These are just hardboiled eggs, so you can eat them too 🙂