Naturally Dyed Wooden Easter Eggs: An Inspired Family Tutorial

With just 6 days left until Easter, those who celebrate are planning what to serve or bring to the big dinner, as well as how to decorate and add the extra touches that make our holidays memorable. Colleen of Souffle Bombay and Heather of Real: The Kitchen and Beyond decided to gather 26 bloggers to share some of their Easter Entertaining Ideas with you! From Jelly Bean Trees to a Giant Deviled Egg, we’ve got you covered! To make this even more memorable we have some amazing giveaways as well from John Boos (crafter of incredible cutting boards, butcher blocks and more), The Spice House (THE online source for incredible spices), Wilton Armetale (maker of both beautiful & finctional serving ware), Divine Chocolates (a fair trade, farmer-owned chocolate company) & The Tree Hut (natural body products that do what they say) for a few lucky readers! Follow along via #AllThingsEaster on social media this week and visit our Pinterest Board “All Things Easter” for more ideas.

Inspired Family couldn’t resist participating in such a cool round up of awesome bloggers and sponsors!!!

Naturally Dyed Wooden Easter Eggs: An Inspired Family Tutorial

Anyone who knows me, knows I am pretty much obsessed with beautiful wooden toys, and encouraging my 19 month old daughter to use natural objects in her play. This is her a few days ago organizing smooth black river stones, corks, and un-dyed wooden eggs into a wood tray. I love her little squat, hehe. My plan with the wooden eggs was to dye them using natural dyes made from beets, cabbage, turmeric, and onion skins.

I started out with a lovely basket of un-dyed wooden eggs. I picked them up at a local vintage salvage shop. A few were already polished with beeswax, so I left those alone, and focused on the raw wooden eggs. After looking up a bunch of recipes online, I decided on a mixture that combined a few different techniques.

It seemed from my research that people got the most success from using purple cabbage, beets, turmeric, and onion skins, so I decided to focus on those ingredients. The process is to cut them up, boil then let simmer for 30 minutes, strain out the “dye”, and submerge the eggs until I reached the desired color.

First, I chopped up the purple cabbage, beets, and onion skins to see how much yield I had from them. I then determined how much water and vinegar I needed to use based on how much I had of each ingredient. Here are the ratios I used:

* Purple cabbage – I had 8 cups, so I used 3 quarts of water and 6 tablespoons of vinegar.

* Turmeric – I used 2 tablespoons, 2 cups of water, and 2 tablespoons of vinegar.

* Onion skins – I had about one cup of onion skins, so I used 1 cup of water and 1 tablespoon of vinegar.

* Beets – I had 3 cups of beets, so I used 4 cups of water and 3 tablespoons of vinegar.

As you can see, my ratios were not exact, but this was not an exact science, simply an experiment in color! 🙂

While in the midst of this project, my husband and daughter found a bird’s nest on the ground in the woods behind our house! Of course I had to use it in my photos to hold the already polished eggs.

Below are various photos of the “process”. Starting from the top (left to right):

Turmeric — Purple cabbage — Beets/purple cabbage mixture

Beets — Turmeric followed by beets — Onion skins

I let them bathe for a few hours. Wood floats to the surface, so I spun and dunk them every few minutes to make sure the color was coming along reasonably evenly. Here they are after I took them out of their dye baths:

TOP (left to right):

Turmeric – Beet/Purple Cabbage Mixture – Turmeric/Beet mixture – Beets – Purple Cabbage – Beets

BOTTOM (left to right):

Turmeric – Purple Cabbage – Beets – Purple Cabbage – Onion Skins – Turmeric

After I let them dry for a while, I polished them using a local beeswax polish made from raw beeswax, olive oil, and grape seed oil.

And that was it! It was messy (I should have taken photos of my kitchen sink and all the pots, pans, and bowls afterward) but I think the results are gorgeous! As I took these photos my daughter couldn’t wait to get her hands on them! I distracted her, and hid them to put in her Easter basket this weekend. 😉

Are you going to try this experiment? I would love to see your results!

XOXO Lizzy
Inspired Family

Check out the other posts in this amazing round up, and don’t forget to enter the giveaway!

Ideas for Leftover Easter Eggs

Giant Deviled Egg | Souffle Bombay

Easter Breakfast Recipe Ideas

Easter Breakfast Casserole | How I Pinch A Penny

Lemon Blueberry French Toast Bake with Lemon Mint Cream | O’Boy! Organic

Dutch Baby | The Naughty Mommy

Easter Dinner Recipe Ideas

Scallion & Brown Butter Mashed Potatoes | Musings of a Housewife

Baked Cheesy Broccoli & Rice Casserole | We’re Parents!?

Cheesy Potato Casserole | Coupon Cutting Mom

Easter Dessert Recipe Ideas

Peanut Butter Eggs | Real: The Kitchen & Beyond

Toasted Angel Food Cake Parfait | What the Heck’s a Bonbon?

Easter Lemon Cookies {Allergy Friendly} | Chockababy

Individual Lemon Meringues | Pandora’s Deals

Peeps in the Pond Trifle | Opera Singer in the Kitchen

Rice Krispie Pops/Chocolate Covered Pretzels | A Grande Life

Easter Cocktail Recipe Ideas

Raspberry Beer Float | Teaspoon of Spice

The Peter Cottontail Cocktail | Can’t Google Everything

Bunnytail-tini | Mommy Snapped

Easter Decorating Ideas

Easter Printable | Diapered Daze and Knights

Easter Centerpiece | The Vintage Mom

Jellybean Tree Centerpiece | Look What Mom Found

Easter Gift Ideas

Allergy Friendly Non-Toxic Easter Basket | Mom-Blog    

Naturally Dyed Wooden Easter Eggs | Inspired Family

Sugar Free Easter Basket Ideas | philly fun 4 kids

Easter Fun

5 Easter Activities for Kids | Mama Teaches

Taking Great Easter Photos | Life with Kaishon

Frugal Easter Basket Ideas & Menu

Easter Egg Pass | A Life in Balance

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One of you will win this a-mazing Signature Spice Box Set from the Spice House (wait till you try the Vulcan’s Fire Salt!) as well as this incredibly gorgeous John Boos Maple Cutting Board with handles… it has handles! Swoon!

Prize Pack #2

And one of you will win a delicious Bakers Spice Box from The Spice House (the Chicago Sugar will change your life!), this gorgeous set of decadent chocolates from Divine Chocolate (chocolates!!) this beautiful Flutes & Pearls Egg Tray from Wilton Armetale (they have such pretty pieces) and an awesome Tree Hut Duo of Shea Sugar Scrub and Body Lotion – (time to pamper yourself)!

We would like to give a huge thank you to the companies that made this give away possible. Thank you to John Boos for the beautiful maple cutting board, The Spice House for their spice and baking gift sets, Divine Chocolate for their luxuriously rich Fair Trade Chocolate gift basket, Wilton Armetale for the elegant egg plate, and Tree Hut for the body scrub and lotion.