Dyeing ceramic eggs with natural dyes
I’ve been wanting to do the leaf and flower batik egg activity for a while but we don’t eat eggs in our house so, this year, I bought some ceramic eggs to see if they would work well as a replacement. I’ve also been really keen to have a go at making my own natural dyes and for this activity I used turmeric and red cabbage. The turmeric-dyed eggs, not surprisingly, turned out yellow, but the beautiful blue eggs were dyed with red cabbage!
What you will need:
Ceramic eggs
Small leaves and flowers
Old tights or stockings (you could also use pieces of muslin cloth or similar and thread to tie with instead)
Red cabbage and/or turmeric
Vinegar
Saucepan with lid
A sieve or colander
Bowl or jar big enough for your eggs to be completely submerged in dye
Optional - white crayon or oil pastel; gold/silver paint and brush
What you need to do:
First gather a selection of small, young leaves and flowers. Then cut your tights so that you have several tubes of tights about 15cm long.
Place one or two leaves or flowers onto an egg and then carefully place inside the tube of tights so that it sits in the middle of the fabric. If you find that the leaves and flowers move about, you can wet the flowers and leaves to help them stick to the egg.
Stretch out the ends of the tights so that the material sits smoothly over the leaves and then pull the ends around the back of the egg and tie into a knot.
Now you can prepare your dyes! For the blue dye, roughly chop about 1/2 a red cabbage and place in a saucepan with enough water to cover the cabbage. Bring to a boil and then simmer for about 15-30 minutes with the saucepan lid on until the water turns a deep purple colour. Let the mixture cool until it’s warm, then drain the liquid through a sieve or a colander to remove the cabbage.
To make the yellow dye, add a couple of tablespoons of turmeric and about 500ml water to a saucepan and, again, simmer for about about 15-30 minutes with the pan lid on.
Transfer the dyes into a bowl or jar and add a tablespoon of vinegar into each which will help fix the dyes.
Pop your eggs into the dyes making sure there’s enough dye to cover the whole egg (if not, you might need to transfer the dye to a smaller jar or bowl). The ceramic eggs I used were hollow so they floated and weren’t completely submerged in the dye. If yours are the same, you can periodically dunk the eggs so they get re-covered in dye or you can place something like another bowl on top of the eggs to keep them submerged.
I left the eggs in the turmeric dye for about 4 hours and the eggs in the red cabbage dye overnight.
In the photo below of the eggs in the turmeric dye, there is one egg on which I used a white oil pastel to create a design before dyeing. Like the flowers and leaves, the oil in the pastel resists the dye. You can use a white crayon to create the same effect. There are so many fun ways to decorate eggs!
When you are happy with the colour of your eggs, cut open and remove the tights and then carefully peel away your leaves and flowers. Your eggs will have the shape of the leaves and flowers batiked onto them.
Leave your eggs to dry then admire your beautiful eggs!
Once our eggs were dry, we spattered some gold and silver paint onto a few of them by dipping an old brush into the paint and then using our thumbs to flick the paint onto the eggs. This is best done not too close to create a finer spray.
My children are keen to make some more natural dyes - perhaps using spinach for green eggs and beetroot for pink eggs?
Author: Denise Hope, home educating mum of two boys