Fancy Up Your Easter Eggs with Herbs and Weeds

 

I wanted to try something a little different this year for our colored eggs. Originally I thought I'd try out some of those recipes for natural colors, using things like turmeric and blueberries and red cabbage. But, I ran out of time and motivation.

We were invited by my friend Rita to come and color eggs at her house (perfect, because I was losing motivation to even color eggs at all), and I thought I'd experiment while we were there with an idea I ran across on one of my google searches. I couldn't tell you were I first saw it, but it's been in my mind ever since as one of those 'huh, that would be cool to try' ideas.

Using the leaves from herbs or weeds, or even tiny flowers, you can make imprints on your colored eggs. It's really fun to experiment, and I kind of like how they turned out!

To make these natural imprints, gather:

• pieces of panty hose
• any leaves or flowers you can find
• twist ties
• egg coloring

I had panty hose on hand from last summer when I used it for tying up my tomatoes (click here to see).

I used some of the parsley we have growing on our windowsill, and one of the flowers from our begonia. Then I did a quick walk in the yard and found various leaves of weeds, including some dainty little dandelion leaves and some tiny clover. 

The panty hose keeps your little green items stuck on the egg. I noticed that if you wet the egg a bit, the leaves will stick a little better while you position the panty hose on, and then you just pull it tight and twist tie it.

Soak it in your egg coloring for as long as you like. I found that the darker colors definitely turned out better. I was using brown eggs, because we'd already used up all the white eggs by the time I was ready to experiment. I think white eggs would have made even more dramatic imprints.

It was a fun little experiment, and the kids seems fascinated by it, too. Lily tried to stick the flowers and leaves on top of the colored eggs, smooshing them down with water. I appreciated her enthusiasm!

The only downfall with this fun method is that your fingers will definitely get stained, since you have to fiddle with the dye-covered panty hose to get your eggs out. No big deal; after just a few hours the stains had gone away for the most part!

Once you are finished, put your twist ties away, dry out your panty hose to use later on in the summer with your tomatoes, and compost the leftover leaves and flowers. Nothing wasted!

Next year I think I will try to find some tiny flowers at the store, and some different herbs. And hopefully I'll get around to trying some of the natural coloring recipes, because some of them turn out quite beautiful. 

Enjoy coloring your eggs this year, and Happy Easter! :)

edited on 4/26/14: Here is another version I found after the fact. In this link, the person tied up the eggs while they were still raw, then cooked/colored them at the same time, using what appears to be onion skin. The results are stunning, take a look! Scroll down to egg idea #10.