Naturally dyed Easter eggs

This is the third year I've experimented with dying Easter eggs using natural ingredients.  You can see the results of my very first batch here.

This year I made the dye baths from some ingredients I haven't tried in the past.  The top left corner is blueberries, bottom left is spinach, and the right is cranberries.  Please pardon the messy stove - I have better things to do with my time than clean :)

After boiling down the ingredients, I let them cool, strained out the plant material, and added a couple tablespoons of vinegar.  Clockwise from top left: spinach, cranberries, blueberries, and some pomegranate blueberry juice I had on hand.

I always use eggs that have been hollowed so I can give them as gifts and keep them from year to year.  I had planned on using these eggs for another project, which is why they have extra large holes - but I never got around to making anymore so I just went with it.

I wrapped the eggs in bits of lace trim and also plant material that I secured by wrapping the entire egg in nylon.

Here are the results from left to right:  Spinach, cranberries, pomegranate blueberry juice, blueberries, turmeric, blueberries, cranberries.

The blueberries definitely made the darkest and most vibrant dye, and the turmeric came out pretty nice as well.

I was surprised at how light the spinach dye turned out, but I found that you need heck of a lot of spinach to get a good green color.

I let Phoebe, on the other hand, go crazy with a good old fashioned, tablet-style Easter egg kit.  Bright colors and instant results for her toddler attention span.

Happy Easter everyone!