Happy Easter

This has nothing to do with bookbinding, and I don't usually post about things that are so totally unrelated, but I'm making an egg-ception today. We dyed our Easter eggs using all-natural homemade dyes this year, and I wanted to document the process so that I can refer to it, and approve upon it, again next year.

Step One
Prepare the eggs. Either hard-boil the eggs, or blow them out. I did some of each. In the end, I like the blown out hollow eggs best. Although with a toddler here who is very interested in playing with the pretty eggs, the hard-boiled eggs are more durable, of course. After the eggs were boiled/blown, I also washed them with a little soapy water. I had read that eggs have some natural oils that might alter the effectiveness of the dyes, so washing with a little soapy water would remove it.

Step Two
Make the natural dyes.
1. Purple Cabbage: I put about a cup of chopped cabbage into two cups of boiling water and then simmered it for a half hour. When it was cooled, I put it though a strainer to remove the cabbage and was left with just the liquid. (It was very purple. I was expecting purple eggs, so I also used the purple cabbage dye, slightly altered, to make a blue dye. See "Blue Plan B" below.)
2. Onion Skins: I put about a cup of yellow onion skins into two cups of boiling water and let it simmer for a half hour. When it was cool, I put it through the strainer to remove the onion skins.
3. Turmeric: I put two tablespoons of turmeric powder into two cups of boiling water and let it simmer for a half hour. When it was cool, I put it through a mesh bag to strain it, and was able to remove most of the sediment to get a pretty clear yellow liquid.
4. Beet juice from a can of beets: I had saved some of the liquid from a can of beets for this, so I used it, just as it was. I didn't boil it. But I probably should have. (I got a couple very pretty pink eggs from using this beet juice but within 24 hours, they started to turn brown and looked terrible. So I don't recommend this for dying your eggs. Boiling chopped beets to make a pink dye might be a better approach since I read about other people using beets with no complaints).
5. Spinach Juice: I had some spinach juice so I thought I'd try it to make some green eggs. I boiled it, and noticed that the water turned brown. I discarded this brown water since I didn't want to make brown eggs - I can get pretty brown eggs at the store! So, I tried using some of the raw spinach juice, but it didn't work. See "Green Plan B" note below.

Step Three
After the dyes are cool, put them into containers, such as a glass measuring cup or a jar, and add about two tablespoons of white vinegar to each container.

Step Four
Submerge the eggs in the dyes. I kept the containers in the refrigerator although I don't know if that really matters. I checked on them periodically, and found that most of the colours started to work after about a half hour. The photo just above, shows how they looked after about an hour. Look at that pretty pink! The longer they were submerged, the darker the colours became. I took out some eggs after just a couple hours and I left some for about six hours so I got different shades of each colour.

Step Five
When you are happy with the colour of the eggs, remove them from the dyes and let them dry. That's it. All done!

And go ahead, pour your leftover dyes down the drain. All natural. No harm.

A very pretty batch of Easter eggs, don't you think? In this next picture you can see what is happening to the pink egg. It started to get blotchy, then turned brown, and I threw it out yesterday when I saw that it had turned grey. I had made two pink eggs, and the same thing happened to both. Next year, I will perfect the pink egg.


Blue Plan B
I wanted to have some blue eggs. So, something from somewhere in the back of my mind, was telling me that if I added baking soda and vinegar to the purple cabbage dye, that it would turn blue. And it did! So in the photo above, the "Blue Plan B" is actually purple cabbage dye with vinegar and baking soda. If you try this, make sure you have lots of room in the container because it really fizzes up when you add the baking soda! In the end, the original purple cabbage dye (without the baking soda) also resulted in blue eggs. I thought they would be purple, but they are the darkest blues shown in the pictures here. The teal blues are the ones made with the altered purple cabbage dye.

Green Plan B
The raw spinach juice didn't work at all. After a couple hours, the eggs were still white, so I discarded the spinach juice and put "Green Plan B" into action. I had blue dye. I had yellow dye. Shouldn't I be able to combine them and get green dye? So, I made some more purple cabbage dye, added the baking soda and vinegar and got a new little batch of blue dye. I also boiled some more turmeric and got a new little batch of yellow dye. Then I mixed them together and got green! I didn't cook them as long because I was rushing a bit, so the dye was pale and consequently the eggs were also pale. But I think if I had made a more concentrated dye, I could have got brighter or darker green eggs. I will try again next year.

Perhaps someday I can connect this with a bookbinding project. I'd just have to make natural dyes for book cloth... I think the process would be very similar. Happy Easter, anyway!