Paint your Easter Eggs using natural dyes

When I was a little girl, one of the things I looked forward to most about Easter was dying the Easter eggs. After the dying session would come the Easter egg hunt.

Of course, my parents never let us forget or get confused about the true purpose of the holiday but, in all honesty, we looked forward to the Easter egg hunts more than going to church (just keeping it real).

What I remember as vividly as the colours of the dyes on the outside of the eggs is how the dyes would leak into the hardboiled eggs. Two things struck me: “We should eat these eggs and not waste them” was my first thought, while my second was: “Can we eat eggs that look like this”, because they were a tie dye mess.

Fast forward to today and I now know that those dyes are not good for you at all.

So how do you let your children safely enjoy this tradition? Use the natural vibrant colours in certain foods! This is a fun and messy project to do with your children.

Make your dyes:

To make pink (beets), purple (purple cabbage) or green (spinach), use 2 cups of shredded vegetable to 2 cups of water. To make yellow, use 4 tablespoons of turmeric powder or grated root in 2 cups of water. Place in a large pot. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 45 minutes. Let it sit and cool before straining.

To make blue dye, use purple cabbage as above but add 1 teaspoon of baking soda to the liquid after it cools.

Dye your eggs:

Hard-boil your eggs

Let eggs cool

Wash off the egg shells gently rubbing them to remove any residue

Soak the eggs in the dyes for up to 24 hours (refrigerate eggs while soaking if you plan to eat them)

Now you have naturally dyed eggs perfectly safe to hide and eat.