[Chrysalis]

Hi.  Has anyone tried dyeing their own eggs (or even their hens' eggs! ) for Easter?

I thought I'd try using red onion skins for green dye and beetroot for red, carrots for orange.  I plan to use wax for a design on hard-boiled eggs and then dip-dye into the colours.  Will it work?
I'm trying to avoid too much chocolate this year as I've lost some weight recently and don't want to put it back on! 

[mumofstig]

When I lived in Greece we used yellow onions skins to make the traditional red dye for eggs, and polished them with olive oil 

http://greekfood.about.com/od/greekcookingtips/ht/redeggs.htm

[Annen]

I used to wrap the eggs in the brownest onion skins with a rag knotted around to keep them on, and hard boil them.  They came out with random patterns of brown and reds. Worked best when all eggs were white in the olden days 

[Springlands]

When I was young we used to use the flowers of the whin bush (you might know it better as gorse) to boil the eggs in and it made the eggs a lovely yellow colour.

[Chrysalis]

Some great ideas.  Thanks 

Just made some dye with red onion skins.  Looks red to me, but one web-site says it'll be green!  I may have to get some spinach! Pity there's none growing in this snowy weather. 
I'd like to try turmeric or paprika for some exotic colours...

I like the marbling effect, thanks. I'll give it a go.

[sunshineband]

Beetoot was our favourite when we were children, followed by gorse

and we added patterns in candle wax, then scraped it off afterwards

A mix of the two colours gave a lurid orange one year 

We used to dye the eggs from our neighbour's white leghorns, so the colours were very bright

[Chrysalis]

Red onions gave a deep brown dye after all that effort.  I made some ears and we have dark brown egg- bunnies..

paprika was useless. 

Running out of eggs now as OH is back and we've eaten loads...
Happy Easter everyone

[sunshineband]

Red onions gave a deep brown dye after all that effort.  I made some ears and we have dark brown egg- bunnies..

paprika was useless. 

Running out of eggs now as OH is back and we've eaten loads...
Happy Easter everyone

They sound cute