Bougie Hippie Easter Eggs

I’m a big fan of craft projects that turn something you could buy quickly, easily, and cheaply into an expensive, time-consuming headache with questionable return. So it is that I’ve often made my own skincare products out of pricey, hard-to-find ingredients instead of just buying them from Aveda much more cheaply.

And, of course, as soon as the Farmers Almanac (where I get my news) posted something on Facebook about dying Easter eggs from natural household substances, I was on it. Despite the fact that I am not Christian and don’t really celebrate Easter, and my children aren’t old enough to care about pretty colored eggs. As we were heading out to a very expensive 3:30 p.m. “dinner” at Log Haven restaurant in Mill Creek Canyon yesterday, my husband asked “Why are we celebrating Easter again?” To which I replied, “It’s just an excuse to wear pastels and go off my diet, honey.” 

Back to the eggs. First, I gathered ingredients, saving onion skins for a week in a smelly jar and sending my mom to the store for beets (which she hates), grape juice (ew), and cheap eggs—both white and brown. Then, I divided everything evenly into pots and loosely followed the Farmers Almanac instructions to use “at least a half cup of the dye substance” and a few tablespoons of white vinegar.

They turned out pretty lovely: 

 But that was just round 1. If you’re a true functioning craftaholic like I am, you always have to take it to the next level. So on round 2, my stepdaughter Emily and I used relief objects like chrysanthemum flowers, baby spinach leaves, rubber bands and cabbage leaves to create a batik effect:

The results were pretty spectacular. Here is what we used to dye each of the above eggs:

I also learned a valuable lesson about Easter egg hunts yesterday, after setting my 14-month-old daughters on the loose in the back yard to find them:

Apparently you’re supposed to use plastic eggs for this. They loved finding the eggs, jamming their little fingers into them, and taking giant bites out of them with their huge chompers. So I spent a good part of my morning hysterically digging inedible egg goo out of my daughter’s chipmunk cheeks.