They are brightly coloured and beautiful, symbols of fertility and new life and you can eat them- 4 in one. Home decorated eggs for Easter are far better than the famous chocolate egg.

What’s more, Easter eggs are a wonderful way to demonstrate your creative skills!

However, before you start the decoration process, remember that although many different dyes and colouring methods can be applied, the safest way to produce these beautiful eggs is by using natural dyes from foodstuffs.

To prepare the colours it's possible to use natural ingredients that can be found in almost any kitchen:

Pink/red: Pomegranate juice, red onion skins, beets or the juice from pickled beets, pickled red cabbage juice, chopped rhubarb stalks, cranberries or cranberry juice, raspberries, red grape juice. 

Pale Red: Fresh beets or cranberries, frozen raspberries.

Orange : Yellow onion skins, Paprika.

Dark orange: Chilli powder

Light yellow: Orange or lemon peels, carrot tops, celery seed or ground cumin.

Yellow: Ground turmeric

Pale green: Spinach leaves

Green-gold: Golden Delicious apple peels

Blue: Canned blueberries or blueberry juice, blackberries, purple grape juice or red cabbage leaves. 

Lavender: Small quantity of purple grape juice, violet blossoms plus two teaspoons of lemon juice, small quantity of red onion skins

Beige to brown: Strong brewed coffee, tea, black walnut shells.

Herbal and black teas will give you varying shades of greens, reds and browns.

To dye the perfect eggs for Easter the natural way, try the following:

1. Put eggs in a single layer in a pan. Pour water in pan until the eggs are covered. 

2. Add about a teaspoon of vinegar. 

3. Add the natural dye appropriate to the colour you want your eggs to be. (The more eggs you are dying at a time, the more dye you will need to use.) 

4. Bring water to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15-30 minutes. The longer you allow the ingredients to simmer, the darker the colour will become.

5. Remove the substance you used to colour the eggs. Put eggs in a bowl. If you want your eggs to be a darker shade, cover them with the dye and let them stand overnight in the refrigerator.

6. When finished, you can rub the eggs with vegetable oil to give them a soft sheen. 


Marbleized Eggs
Wrap fresh eggs in onion skin. Carefully insert the egg (with skin) into old nylon tights and ties the ends so the egg can't escape. Hard boil the eggs. Remove the tights - eggs are marbled.

Patterns 
Wrap a rubber band around the egg to create contrast, either on a white egg, to prevent colouring, or on a dry, dyed egg, where it will give you a stripe of the original colour if it's re-dipped in another.

Austrian artists design patterns by fastening ferns and tiny plants around the eggs, which are then boiled. The plants are then removed revealing a striking white pattern. Take an old silk stocking to attach the ferns to the egg and remove after coloring. 


For inspiration- check out this site: 
http://www.sheries-kitchen.com/stories/easter.htm

 To get an idea of how your dyed eggs will look – take a look at this site: 
http://billi-jean.com/blog/?page_id=246