Sunday, April 24, 2011

Leaf Print Natural Dye Easter Eggs & Chex Mix Egg Stuffing

Happy Easter!!!
I hope you all have a wonderful day planned. We are spending the day with the family, and I especially feel so lucky on days like this that family is close by, and we are blessed enough to be able to spend it with them. 


Lats night we colored our Easter eggs, and stuffed out plastic ones. Every year I catch myself, debating on wether it's worth the extra effort to color Easter eggs the natural way, or if I should just go easy and get some dye. I've done the dye, and I've done the natural. Of course there is no way you can get those vibrant colors from natural, BUT it is a beautiful egg. I hope you agree. 


I just wanted to show you a quick step by step, even though actually doing this, takes a good couple hours. So be prepared for that, and while the kids can usually participate in the egg dipping with traditional dyes, this is better left for adults, or older children. 
 Gather your supplies. Pantyhose, cilantro leafs (or parsley, or anything that you think will look pretty), and string.
 Place the leaf on the sweaty egg, and it helps it stick, trust me, sweaty eggs are your friend, he he.
 Carefully roll pantyhose like you are trying to put it on your foot, only slip an egg in there instead.
 Twist it a couple times, and wrap string around it.
 Continue until you have a long pantyhose egg filled sausage. It's totally awesome doing it like this, so much fun, trust me.
I know I said no little ones allowed, but he was so determined. He did it perfect but the leaf fell off when he tried dropping the egg in there, lol.
 Oh well, he seems happy with himself regardless. 
 I have never used beets before, but read that they work, so this year I gave them a try. I have only used onion skins before, and those need to be collected way in advance. Every time you go to the store, skin the onions as much as you can, and then when you check out, get ready for stares, it's always funny.
 Drop those eggs in the STAINLESS steel pot of boiling beet juice, and some vinegar. I left the beets in there too, just for extra cushioning, and thinking it would help color the eggs better.
 I also tried a yellow turmeric dye. Again adding a little vinegar, boiling, and dropping the eggs in there to boil.
 In the meantime my mom brought us over the famous Easter sweet bread. It was so delicious, and perfectly sweet, soft, smelled of freshly ground walnuts, mixed with sugar, and the sweet smell of poppyseed filling.
 Oh can you smell that, can you.
 Do you just want to bite into that, DO YOU.
 Oh my goodness, it was good. I had two slices, thanks mom. :)
Then Dino D amazed us with his architectural skills.
 Earlier in the day we filled our plastic eggs with check mix.
Yes the kids thought it was weird.
 Ok, you may think this is weird also, but how much candy does a kid need. What's wrong with having a healthier snack in there.
Just make sure to wrap the chex mix in plastic wrap.


That's about it folks. Now are you ready to see these eggs? I left them in the water, in the fridge over night.
 This morning, I started cutting them out of the pantyhose, and was pretty happy with the result. The turmeric ones didn't turn out as yellow, as I had hoped for. The beet ones hardly created a red, or even a pink, but they were still beautiful.
 Here they are soaking up the morning sun.
So what do you think? Have you ever tried natural egg dyes?
I have to tell you, I really prefer the onion skins. I love the color they produce, and you can't beat FREE. I had to buy canned beets, and then throw out the beets, it just seemed like such a waste, and the color is not what I expected. Onion skins, especially red ones, make the most beautiful eggs. Just make sure you have a TON of onion skins.

Once again HAPPY EASTER, and please share how your day was. I would also love to hear your thoughts on this post.


P.s. I'm linking up to these awesome parties ---->>
All the blogs I link up to can be found in my blog rolls in my sidebar. Go see what my favorite bloggers are up to :)
P.p.s If you host a party, and don't like the way I link back, kindly let me know, and I will be happy to make it right. I think having all the parties I link up to in my blog roll in my sidebar is a wonderful way for my readers to see whats new with your blogs, as it's always being updated. No need to wonder which party started, now you can see exactly what everyone is up to right away :)



7 comments:

  1. Oh Bella love love the way you dyed eggs. so much fun and what an amazing result I am impressed friend... I will go for a try soon...
    Hope you would like to pay a visit to me at
    http://craftaworld.blogspot.com/
    Love
    Farah

    ReplyDelete
  2. Those eggs are wonderful! I love how they turned out. But I swear, if I was to attend an Easter egg hunt with you and your kids, I would snatch them little ones up and NEVER give them back. They are just as beautiful as their Mum, and I am (non-) accidentally in love!

    ReplyDelete
  3. very impressive and inspiring bella
    anandhirajan
    www.anandhirajansrtsncrafts.blgospot.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. WOW!! I'm totally impressed and even more so that your not too happy with the outcome!! I think they are beautiful!! I'll have to try the onion skins, I've never done that one before. AND I love the chex mix idea! I didn't want Alie to have too much candy either so I filled her eggs with marshmallows....NO marshmallows are not candy....they are marshmallows! hhaha!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Awesome leaf eggs, so nice and earthy!

    I love the chex mix in the eggs! I put some bubble gum pieces and a few other candies in my eggs for our 7 yr old. The baby just got a handful of puffs in his Easter basket. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I have so much curly parsley, I wish I'd seen this idea!

    Of course, I don't have panty hose...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Bella, how awesome! Love the beauty of the naturalness, the creativity of the pantyhose, and the healthiness of the chex mix vs. candy. You are brilliant!

    ReplyDelete

I LOVE comments. I also LOVE visiting your blog, so please leave a CLICKABLE LINK to your blog post by using the following code!!

<a href="link to your url, or direct blog post"> what you want your link to say </a>

P.S. Thanks BUNCHES for reading my blog and leaving a NICE comment :)

Hugs, Bella

My photo
In my spare time I enjoy cooking, and baking. In fact my mother and I have been making cakes for over 30 years. I also love gardening, traveling, and all things crafty. I struggle daily to keep my like organized, along with my never ending battle to keep the house clean. I adore my three kids MOST of the time, and can usually be found doing the mom thing from morning till night. I try to catch a few mommy moments, but those are hard to find in this wonderful life of mine. I am blessed and happy, and am thrilled you stopped by today :)