There are always the traditional brown eggs with floral print in our home on Easter. It’s an activity that kids enjoy from the beginning till the end. Many Czechs know this way of dyeing the eggs and so this tutorial is for those of you who don’t
As you maybe know, the eggs get this brown color from the dry onion skin. You can dye the eggs completely brown but I recommend you to go outside with your kids and pick many flowers and leaves to print on the eggs.
You probably have all the things at home already:
- eggs
- onion skin
- bandage/gauze
- thread
- plants
- vinegar
- a little oil
- paper napkin
You’ll also need a cooking pot, rather a bigger one so that you can put as much onion skin in it as possible (I use a 5l pot and try to fill it as much as I can). Also it should be a pot which you don;’t mind getting brown on the inside. Although I uset white eggs for this tutorial, I recommend you to use rather the brown ones, the color will catch on better and the eggs will be generally more beautiful in color.
Let’s do it:
Put the onion skin in the pot and pour water on them so that there’s enough water for the eggs to be completely cover during a 30 minute boil or longer. Add 1 tablespoon of vinegar for each liter of water. Bring the water to boil meanwhile you prepare the eggs.
Take two stripes of bandage and lay them down in a cross. They need to be long enough to cover the egg and so you can bind their ends with a thread.
Place a plant where the two stripes cross.
Place an egg on the plant.
Wrap the egg.
Secure the ends of the bandage with a thread.
Place the wrapped eggs in boiling water and boil for half an hour or more. The more onion skin and the longer the boiling time, the fuller the resulting color. Leave the eggs in the water until the water cools down, then take the eggs out, unwrap and let dry. Put a few drops of oil onto the napkin and polish the eggs. You can use the eggs as a centerpiece for your table or give them away on Easter Monday during the traditional Czech mrskut.
