Create some stunning bright eggs, with natural ingredients! I recently shared some images of all the gorgeous gorse in the Mourne Mountains and discovered that you can use these beautifully scented blooms for natural dyeing. So here is a little guide on natural dyeing with gorse and cabbage.
What you need for natural dyeing
Yellow Easter Eggs: 2 branches of gorse (wear gloves when picking it)
Blue Easter Eggs: 1/4 head cabbage
Plus a big cooking pot, white eggs, needle, toothpick, string
Optional bike pump (sounds random but it will come in handy!)
Let's get started with dyeing some Easter Eggs
Usually eggs are boiled alongside the dye material. This is great if you want to make hard boiled eggs. However I wanted to create eggs to hang from branches, which is why I am following a different route.
1) Boil your dye material. Add all the gorse and cabbage into separate pots, cover fully with water and bring to a boil. Simmer for 15-30 minutes.
2) Pour your liquid through a strainer. So you end up with liquid only and no cabbage and gorse. Then let the liquid cool down.
3) Put your raw eggs into glass jars (carefully) and pour over the dye liquid. Sit them in the fridge for 2 hours. I took them out after 2 hours dried them and let sit for another 2 hours to get a deeper colour.
4) Now the fun begins - Blowing out the eggs. Start off by piercing two holes into the egg with a needle on both the top and bottom end. Make the whole big enough for a toothpick to fit. From there blow the egg out.
Top Tip: To save your breath use a bicycle pump to help you, but be gentle as too much pressure will crack the egg!
5) Now cut small pieces of toothpicks, attach a piece of string to it and feed it into the top opening of the egg. Your eggs are ready to hang!
6) Optional: Add decoration. I decided to add a bit of bling to the eggs by applying some copper leaf.
Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs
Great! If you got interested in natural dyeing of Easter Eggs check out this blog from the Kitchn for more colour options.
Let us know how you are getting on and share your images with us! #paintedearthgifts #paintedeggs ;)
If you are still looking for a cute Easter surprise, check out our Easter Baskets. There are only a few left...
