Decorate Easter Eggs Using Organic Matter

Easter egg DIY post by Viveka Tizm

Note: The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of RetoxMagazine.com

Above: Decorated Easter eggs using onion skins

COLOUR EASTER EGGS USING ONION SKINS

If I can do it, you can do it!

During this Easter I have attempted something I have never done before; decorate my Easter eggs using onion skins - the perfect natural die. This morning I have decorated eggs using onion skins for the first time, so I am far from an expert. However, one thing is certain; it’s damn easy and if I can do it, I believe so can you!

What you'll need to decorate the eggs

1. Eggs – I used a mix of white and brown eggs;
2. Onion skins – red or brown onion skins or both for extra diversity;
3. A scrappy piece of paper (optional);
4. Stretchy thin cloth or a pair of tights;
5. Scissors;
6. Thread to tie together the cloth;
7. A saucepan and water to boil your eggs in.

See what you'll need to decorate the eggs.

PREPERATION

Get your eggs ready!

Select what eggs you want to use. The onion skins will colour your eggs in a variety of brown hues. If you use white eggs, you’ll have a greater contrast between the colour tones. If you use brown eggs, you will lose the white tones, making the contrast smaller (you’ll mostly be painting brown on brown!). For experimental purposes, I have used a mix of white and brown eggs.

If your eggs happen to have anything stuck to them, like chicken feathers, or if you have kids part taking in this activity, you may want to wash your eggs before handling the raw eggs.

Get your stretchy fabric ready!

On this occasion I have used a pair of tights – you may find that tights are easier to obtain on the high-street than stretchy thin fabrics! Some people use fabric that doesn’t stretch, however I was told by my Easter-Egg guru that the onion skin has to sit as close and tight to the egg as possible for brighter patters. Thin stretch material is therefore ideal.

Cut your material up in small squares, large enough to easily fit and wrap an egg.

"Cut your material up in small squares..."

The scrappy bit of paper (optional)

This is optional and I used this purely for experimental purposes. I heard that if you add additional flowers, leafs, bunches of herbs, or even small cut out paper shapes between the egg and the onion skin layer, you can get extra pattern. Sounds fun, right? I therefore decided to include a simple experiment using paper. If you use paper, you can cut out any shapes you want, but keep them reasonably small. Remember you are not wrapping your eggs in paper! ;)

"Cut out any shapes you want, but keep them reasonably small..."

The thread

The thread will be used to tie up the material that wraps your egg. You can use different colour threads to identify different eggs. This works well if you have multiple people participating in the decorating process and they all want to identify their own eggs. In my case I used two colours for the thread as I wanted to do a split test between using read onion skins and brown onion skins and see the difference different onion skins make. The eggs that had red onion skins were tied up using a white thread and the ones that used brown inion skins were tied up using the blue thread. The eggs that were decorated using a mix of brown and red onion skins were tied using both threads.

"The eggs that had red onion skins were tied up using a white thread and the ones that used brown inion skins were tied up using the blue thread..."

DIRECTIONS

Decorating your Easter eggs

Crush the onion skins into smaller pieces for a more intense pattern or keep them larger to achieve more leafy shapes. Dip the egg in water; this will help the onion skins cling to the egg better. My personal favourite is to cover the egg in small crushed pieces of onion skin and then overlay it with a larger piece to cover any gaps. However, experiment with different combinations as that is what makes egg decorating fun. If you’re adding paper bits or other plants in between, insert that between the egg and the onion skin – don’t place it over the onion skin, as that won’t really work.

"Crush the onion skins into smaller pieces for a more intense pattern..."

Once you have your egg covered in onion, wrap the cloth over it, and tie up the ends in a bunch. Make the cloth wrap the egg as tight as possible, but be wary not crush the egg. Think of it this way, the tighter the wrapping the clearer the pattern!

"Once you have your egg covered in onion, wrap the cloth over it, and tie up the ends in a bunch..."

Boil your eggs

Once you have bundled up your eggs, it is time to hard-boil them. Hard boiling the eggs gives enough time for the colour to stick to the eggshell. One of the best ways to save the eggs from cracking while boiling them is to place them into a saucepan with room temperature water and slowly bring water to a boil over medium heat. It's is more likely the eggs will crack if you immediately place the eggs into boiling water, so don't do it. Add some salt to the water as that will supposedly keep the whites from leaking out of the crack in case your eggs do crack. When the water has reached a boil continue boiling them for about 7 minutes (there are better egg-boiling techniques but I haven't tested them in line with this egg-decorating technique; they make also work).

Once your eggs have boiled long enough, carefully pour off the boiling water and place the eggs under cold running water to cool them down. Doing this will stop the boil, prevent injuries from handling hot eggs, and will also help the eggs peel better.

YOUR EASTER EGG ARTWORK

Remove all layers and watch the patterns emerge.

Decorated Easter eggs.

Easter egg artwork.