This is a fairly simple activity and will involve going outdoors and collecting a handful of spring shoots: leaves, flowers and grasses. These will then be batiked onto eggs and boiled in onion skins giving them a beautiful rich brown colour. 

This is a nice thing to do with children as you can collect the shoots with them and talk about the spring flowers and leaves that you’re collecting.

You will need:

• 5 eggs (or however many you want to do)

• 5 squares of unbleached cheesecloth or pieces of old stockings or tights (around 18 centimetre/7 inch squares each)

• Some thread or string to tie the cloth round the eggs

• Skins from around four onions (red or white or both are fine)

• A handful of young spring leaves, flowers and/or grasses collected from outdoors

• Vegetable oil (optional for polishing eggs at the end)

What you need to do:

1.      Go outdoors and pick a variety of small leaves, flowers and grasses (minimum 5) 

2.      Once home, wet the flowers, leaves and grasses and lay one or two onto each un-boiled egg, then wrap the cloth tightly round the egg and tie with a piece of thread or string. Repeat this with each egg.

3.      Then make a bed of the onion skins in a sauce pan and lay the eggs wrapped in the cloth into the pan, fill the pan with cold water until it covers the eggs.

4.      Bring the water to boil and leave it to boil for around 10 minutes.

5.      Allow the eggs to cool off before taking them out of the water.

6.      Remove the cloth and flowers and leaves from the eggs. Each egg should have turned a beautiful rich brown colour while the shape of the leaves and flowers and grasses are batiked onto them.

7.      The eggs can be lightly polished with vegetable oil to give them a soft sheen.

8.      The eggs can be eaten or left as decoration.

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