Posted on by Deb

New Beginnings and Spring

Easter eggs

For Easter

Beets

“I want a purple egg.”

East of Eden, John Steinbeck

Inspiration

Spring and Easter are all about new beginnings. For me that means trying something new; using my imagination to reach past self imposed boundaries and limits. Waking from winter hibernation there is a lethargy that lingers. Only a sunny, crisp spring day can shake off that last winter heaviness and push us out into the light.

I could have blogged another dessert. Thoughts of Coconut Cake with Raspberries has been vying for my attention. Instead I indulged my imagination by dyeing eggs and making dioramas with bunnies and chicks for Easter. I hope my indulgence brings a smile to welcome spring in the northern hemisphere.

daffodils

Essentials

I spent two afternoons dyeing eggs with natural and found materials instead of food dye. My initial plan was to use plant material from my yard and items I already had in the pantry as the dye. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. After reviewing this chart I tried yellow daffodils, red camellias and then red beets (which I purchased on the second day). I also tried cinnamon, turmeric and chili powder. Turmeric resulted in the best color; a golden yellow. Beets gave the eggs a mottled finish in pale pink. Daffodils, camellias, cinnamon and chili powder were all disappointing. There are many differing, yet similar techniques to try when dying eggs with plant material. All call for boiling the plant material and adding vinegar to set the dye. I used this one. I also tried wrapping the eggs in silk fabric (from my fabric stash) to transfer the fabric pattern onto the eggs. Although the patterns transferred to the eggs they were too pale to say the process was a success. I imagine using silk with deep, dark colors would yield the best results. This was the most intriguing of my experiments.

Camellias and Easter eggs

The trend of scenes in jars, even sno-globes caught my attention over a year ago. Finding the fluffy bunnies and chicks was all the impetus I needed to make my own spring scenes. I gathered felt and glue and used cookie cutters as the templates for the flowers. A few dabs of glue later the jars were filled with spring!

Easter scene in lilies

28 Replies to “New Beginnings and Spring”

  5. Love the egg dying experiments. Have always wanted to do that myself. Such a bright and Spring-like post. Happy Easter!

  6. Beautiful bright spring! And so creative. Another natural dye to use is the outer flaky part of onions (I believe called tunics). For Passover seder plates (though I just need one hardboiled egg) I usually add some color to the table by dying the eggs in onion “leaves”. Happy Easter Deb!

    1. Thank you Orly! On my second day of experiments I thought to try onions but opted for beets.

  8. I love your spring proyects Deb! I use naturally dyed silk (I sell handmade fabrics) and they are tinted with onion skins, eucaliptus bark, green tea, mango skins and others that I don´t remember. Your eggs look beautiful, and I love the bunny globe!

    1. Thank you for the scrumptious comment Paula! I would love to hear more about your silk fabric!

  12. Your blog is great. The pictures and receipes are so easy to follow.

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