My nephew is almost 2 years old and really loves his arts and crafts. Easter is next weekend, so I thought it would be nice to dye some eggs with him. I wanted to use all-natural dyes to avoid the chemicals that are in most of the popular dye packs today. I thought it would also be fun for him to see that we made the colors by using vegetables and spices from our own kitchen! It definitely takes a bit longer to prep the dyes, but so worth it in the end. We had such a great time! Some of the colors took a lot better than others (beet, turmeric, and red cabbage were the strongest) while a few others weren’t as successful (spinach did nothing!) I did get a nice green color though when leaving the egg in the red cabbage for a bit then placing it in the turmeric for a bit after that.

If you have leftover dyes, there are a lot of other fun things you can do with it. You can easily dye some fabric, or add it to some homemade play-doh!

Ingredients:
12 white eggs, hard boiled and cooled
3 red beets, peeled and cubed
1/2 red cabbage, chopped (I had a few blueberries in the fridge that I plopped in as well)
2 black tea bags
1 tablespoon turmeric
2 cups spinach (though I find this color didn’t work as well, maybe using frozen spinach or adding fresh basil or ground sage would work better next time)

In separate pots, boil each item with 2 cups of water and a tablespoon of salt for 15 minutes. For the tea, just boil some water and steep the tea bags until dark in color. Once everything finishes boiling, turn off the heat and add a tablespoon of white distilled vinegar. Let cool completely.

Pour each color into little bowls, and make sure you have something underneath in case any spill! It’s amazing how much beets and turmeric can stain. I used glass bowls as well seeing plastic tends to absorb color.