Celebrate Green Blog

By Corey

In our previous post, we showed you how to dye eggs using real fruits, veggies and herbs. Naturally dyed eggs are already quite beautiful, but your family might have fun giving them some eggstra pizazz.

So here’s how to create stripes, swirls & more on your eco-Easter eggs:

If you’d like your Easter eggs to sport patterns, shapes, or words, use a beeswax crayon to draw a design before the egg is dyed. Older kids can paint on melted beeswax with a thin brush.

If using the hot dyeing method, be very careful when decorating fragile uncooked eggs, or use pre-hard boiled eggs. Beeswax will melt off during the hot dye process if eggs are left in too long, but will remain using the cold method. If you want the wax area to disappear after cold dyeing, dip the egg in warm water just until the wax melts, or place in a 200-degree oven for a few minutes.

Want stripes? Wrap the egg with rubber bands. Or, for a tie-dye look, rub shells with vinegar and enfold in onion skins, secured with kitchen twine or rubber bands. Next, hard boil without dye (or do the same with an already hard-boiled egg and just leave onion skin on overnight). Adding a tablespoon of oil to the dye will create a marbled effect.

Create another look by holding a small leaf or blade of grass against the egg with a piece of pantyhose tied tightly around it. Then dye. When the dye is set and the hose is removed, an imprint of the object should appear.

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Text from our book, Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations & Traditions for the Whole Family.

Lynn Colwell and Corey Colwell-Lipson are mother and daughter and authors of  Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family, and founders of Green Halloween®.