Saturday evening, I dyed Easter eggs with Aldis here in Riga. Now, I was thinking we'd do the standard egg-dying kit, with little chemical dyes dropped into hot water and soaking the eggs in the dye.Not so!
We used various sources found from nature, and the end result is random and unpredictable, but very pretty and interesting. So follow the steps and the pictures for instructions on how to dye Easter eggs with supplies found in your garden and local grocery store, without paying for those fancy dye kits.
To prepare, you will need:
Eggs
Nylon socks (you can buy knee-highs for 99 cents at Wal-greens)
Anything from nature with color; we used red onion skins, radish skins, and grass. You m
ay also try tree bark and flowers.
ay also try tree bark and flowers.A large pot to boil and soak the eggs in
Creativity
A little bit of patience
First, start with fresh eggs. Do NOT boil the eggs. We used both white and brown eggs, and the end result was very pretty. So use whichever you prefer (or both). Using the dye materials (onion skins and grass and 
whatever else), wrap the egg and place it inside the toe of the sock. It is a little difficult to keep the materials in place on the egg, but this doesn't matter. Do your best, and just get all of it in the sock. The egg does not need to be entirely covered. Don't be afraid to mix and match your dye materials!
Once the egg and the dyes are in the sock, tie a knot in the nylon. Being careful not to break the egg in the sock, repeat this process with other eggs and dyes until the sock is full. Continue this with other socks until you are out of eggs.
Stick the socks full of eggs in to a pot of water. Make sure the water is covering each of the
eggs. Add any left-over dye materials to the pot of water. Add some salt to the water and boil the eggs as usual (for approximately ten minutes). Turn the stove off after the eggs have boiled, but keep the eggs in the water. Let the eggs and water sit for at least an hour; the longer you let the eggs sit, the more they get dyed! However, if you are impatient, you will get a nice result within an hour. We let our eggs sit overnight and opened them Sunday morning.
eggs. Add any left-over dye materials to the pot of water. Add some salt to the water and boil the eggs as usual (for approximately ten minutes). Turn the stove off after the eggs have boiled, but keep the eggs in the water. Let the eggs and water sit for at least an hour; the longer you let the eggs sit, the more they get dyed! However, if you are impatient, you will get a nice result within an hour. We let our eggs sit overnight and opened them Sunday morning.To open, simply cut the nylon and remove the egg. You may need to run the egg under cold water in order to rinse off the dye materials.
And there you have it! Marbled Easter eggs from nature!
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