Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Ombre Eggs by the Dozen


This year, I had aspirations of dyeing Easter eggs the natural way. In theory, this meant using beets to achieve a lovely shade of pink. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. I let the eggs soak and soak in the dye, but they barely reached a blush and the color came right off when you touched an egg. To boot, the whole apartment smelled like boiled beets. I think it must have come down to the proportions I used, so if anybody has tried this before, I'd love to hear your tips. I'll keep them in mind for next year.

I decided not to give up on my dirty dozen eggs, so I ran to the drugstore, bought a package of PAAS egg dye, the old stand-by, and proceeded to color my eggs, after wiping off the beet juice, of course. I wanted the eggs to be varying shades of the same color, a sort of ombre effect when you look at all of them. To achieve the different shades, I just kept the eggs submerged in teal dye for varying lengths of time. For the darkest eggs, I dyed them blue first, let them dry then dyed them teal.

After the false start, I'm really happy with how they turned out. It was tempting to use all those colorful tablets to get a rainbow assortment, but I love the monochromatic look of these when they're all nestled together. It brought a little sophistication to my otherwise basic dye job, not to mention better and brighter results than my sad little beet eggs.

20 comments:

  1. They look so pretty! Have a great day. xo

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  2. That color speaks to me, especially on eggs! Beautiful!

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  3. Cool! I would love to try dying Easter Eggs this way sometime. And that teal/green color was always my favorite as a kid!!!

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  4. I love Momma's response! Too funny!

    These came out beautifully. I have been wondering how the "natural dye" took to the eggs. Good to know for our egg dying this weekend!

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  5. Too bad about the beets....but I love how beautifully these came out!

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  6. Those are lovely! And you know that is my favorite color, right? I'm assuming that's why you made them,

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  7. Aww that the beet food color didn't work!! It happens...I love the color you did choose! They look perfect in that bowl! =)

    Lemanie's Randomness Blog

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  8. Festive and whimsical! I love it!

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  9. melissa.scottkozak@gmail.comApril 4, 2012 at 11:49 AM

    A good natural dye is red onion skin. It turns the eggs a beautiful shade of brown. You can get fancy and place foliage, or other objects, on the egg and secure it with pantyhose.

    A site for inspiration: http://unioncountyre.wordpress.com/

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  10. they look great, one of my favorite colors. just given me inspiration for center pieces!

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  11. good afternoon from L.A.!

    I love the eggs~particularly because of the varying hues. Gorgeous!

    Warmly,

    Elizabeth

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  12. I love the teal color - so beautiful! A friend of mine died eggs using blueberries this year and they turned out so pretty.

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  13. Sorry that the beets didn't work out, but these eggs are beautiful!

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  14. Very lovely! I'm hoping to color some eggs this weekend.

    http://mandycrandell.blogspot.com/

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  15. What a great idea! I'm really into Ombre at the moment. I did Ombre nails for Valentine's day, and they turned out so great.

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  16. Now I've never tried the beet thing and was considering trying it this year. The instructions I have are to cook the beets when boiling the eggs.

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