What an excellent idea, they're so pretty and unusual!

were any of these on brown eggs? We only buy free range eggs and I haven't been able to find white free range eggs yet :(

I had so much fun doing this last year! It's a fun kitchen experiment, and one that I will get better at with every Easter!

love the deeper colors

@wolfandfinch, brown eggs would probably work best with darker and more orangey colors, and you need to expect a little distortion because the background isn't white. (Or, for the what -- one dozen? eggs you'd dye for Easter, get one pack of white ones.)

Remember you can us a candle or white crayon on the eggs first to give a batik-like resist when you dye. I like spirals and other small simple designs...

@Wolfandfinch I think we bought humane certified and some of them were a light blue, for some reason. FYI if you are doing it for humane reasons, get the certified ones as free range is a meaningless label.

I once was working on a story about this topic of natural food egg dyes. I followed the directions and tried multiple methods over several days. The results -- I could not get any to look anything like the photos shown, except for tumeric (which also imparted scent onto the eggs) and coffee, which, well, we already have brown eggs.

I've done this a couple years - they take longer for the dye to work, but make really great colors. I had best results with beets (red), turmeric (yellow), and red cabbage (blue). Just sort of winged it - made concentrates however seemed best, and then added in white vinegar to help the colors take. From there you have the basic primary colors and can mix to your color's desire. Now I want to try the reverse flower technique - so pretty!

Last Easter I was working on the red (Greek style) onion skin dye...got a wonderful deep red and then put the eggs in to boil, went into the other room to watch Dr. Who and promptly forgot about my Easter eggs. Came back to a kitchen filled with smoke and exploding eggs--the most beautiful shade of red you've ever seen...

Yay, Dr. Who! Who could blame you? When I was a teen, I left popcorn on a burner while watching "Rosemary's Baby." I noticed the stink of smoke just in time to keep the nearest cabinet from catching fire. I got off amazingly light, just having to scrub the kitchen walls.

These are cool but time consuming to make. My fingers are going to go walking to etsy.com for some natural kits:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/93875887/silk-dyed-easter-egg-kit-easy-tidy?ref=sr_gallery_2&sref=&ga_search_query=egg+dye+kit&ga_order=most_relevant&ga_ship_to=US&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_facet=handmade

@emmi : The blue/green eggs were from Auracauna/Americauna hens. For the years when I was lazy (baby # being 5 m onths old, for instance) I used dark brown, light brown, reddish brown, blue and green eggs... there is a HUGE range in natural colors of eggs, and if you add ducks and geese, you get even more interesting sizes and colors. Cayuga ducks, for example, have grey-blue eggs. If you can get eggs locally from a farmer you can get all sorts of colors naturally. @wolfandfinch Brown eggs are just as easy to dye. It's true they look nicest with darker colors, but are beautiful all the same. Rub a little oil on after they are dry from dying and they will have a gorgeous deep lustre.

Those colorful Araucana and Ameraucana chicken eggs were the inspiration for a popular Martha Stewart paint palette.

@Gypsymomma Wow, cool. Thanks for the info.

While "freerange" doesn't have a legal meaning and therefore can't be counted on to mean the same thing to everyone, certified organic doesn't mean that the chickens actually go outside. A large organic egg producer in Massachusetts actually sued to get the rules changed so that the only requirement is that hens have access to the outside. If you have specific concerns about the treatment of the hens laying the eggs you consume, your best bet is to find a local producer and ask your questions directly.

We used natural dyes last year and had a lot of fun doing it. Our most successful combos are on our blog here:

http://eatlocal365.com/2011/04/23/take-a-pause-from-paas-and-make-your-own-natural-easter-egg-dye/

@Magpip the good news is that Humane Certified labels does have the best legal standard among labels. Visiting a farm is your best bet (I am pretty sure every farmer is going to SAY they treat their animals humanely) but certainly not realistic for most people.

I read years ago that the free-range eggs label meant little in part because the dominant hens often keep the rest from using the coops exits. The free-range eggs label also doesn't imply any difference in the hens' diets. I wish I could find a link that shows Martha's eggs-inspired paint palette of 22 colors. That was one of my favorites of her countless projects but, when they pulled it, they really pulled it!