DIY Dyed Robin Eggs

March 30, 2015
DIY,Entertaining

One of my favorite colors is robin’s egg blue. I think the difficulty in recreating the color using dyes and food coloring makes it all that more attractive to me. Only Mother Nature can produce a blue that spectacular. So it only makes sense that the magnificent turquoise hue can be replicated using a single product of nature: red cabbage. That’s right. Red cabbage! You won’t believe it until you try it. And I promise if you haven’t dyed eggs with natural dyes before, you’ll be hooked after trying this.

DIY Dyed Robin Eggs | HonestlyYUM

You’ll need:

  • a dozen white, hard boiled eggs
  • 1 head of red cabbage
  • 4 tbs of white vinegar
  • edible metallic gold paint
  • thick bristle paintbrush or old toothbrush

DIY Dyed Robin Eggs | HonestlyYUM

Start by roughly chopping a head of red cabbage. Put the cabbage in a large pot with 5 cups of water. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 30-45 minutes. Allow the cabbage to cool completely before straining the cabbage out of cabbage dye. Stir in 4 tbs of white vinegar.

DIY Dyed Robin Eggs | HonestlyYUM

Place the eggs in a deep baking dish and pour the dye over the eggs. You’ll want to have each of the eggs completely submerged and not touching each other. But hey – the dye is purple!! That’s right. Just wait. You’ll only have to wait as long as an hour to see the magic happen.

DIY Dyed Robin Eggs | HonestlyYUM

For a lighter robins egg blue, you only need to leave the eggs in the dye for about 1-2 hours. Because the bottom of the eggs make contact with the baking dish, you’ll want to rotate the eggs every half hour or so. When you pull an egg out of the dye, after 1-2 hours, you’ll notice the color will look super faint. It’s okay. The color will darken and develop a richer, greenish hue as it dries. I know, magic.

DIY Dyed Robin Eggs | HonestlyYUM

I wanted an ombré of blues so I took a few of eggs out after an hour, after two hours, after three hours and after four hours. If you are going to leave the eggs for longer than that, or overnight, I suggest putting the eggs and dye in the fridge.

DIY Dyed Robin Eggs | HonestlyYUM

Once the eggs have dried completely, you can leave them as they are or spray them with edible gold paint for a pretty speckled effect. Lay the eggs on a few sheets of paper towels. Dip a dry bristle brush or old toothbrush into the paint and run your index finger along the bristles above the eggs. Let the paint dry before splattering the opposite side.

DIY Dyed Robin Eggs | HonestlyYUM

Your edible, robin eggs are finished!

DIY Dyed Robin Eggs | HonestlyYUM

DIY Dyed Robin Eggs | HonestlyYUM

Happy Easter!

DIY Dyed Robin Eggs | HonestlyYUM

(images by HonestlyYUM)

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Conversation

I made these by blowing the eggs first, using a kit where only one hole is made in the egg. After rinsing them, I used the same blowing tool to fill the eggs with salt water (heavier than regular water) which doesn’t escape the egg because there is only one hole. It’s working beautifully – the eggs are staying under the dye water!

Wow! Amazing and beautiful:) can you eat these eggs after you are done ?

Looks like more than one dye was used since some of the eggs are VERY green, some are turquoise, some are blue. Did you get all the shades of color from the cabbage alone… or did you add some other color to the dye along the way? Thanks! They look gorgeous, however you did it 🙂

I will be doing these with my Residents at our nursing home! But we purchased “artificial” dying eggs, that take dye just like regular eggs and no worry about spoilage or salmonella. Can’t wait to see how they turn out! Does anyone eat the cabbage when they strain it out?

Hi! How did the “artificial” egg dying work out? Did you purchase wood, ceramic or plastic ones? Thank You!

I bought a carton of white fake eggs at WalMart. Do you know if these will pick up dye?

Where the eggs you purchased from Walmart, wood, ceramic or platsic? Thank you!!!

In the ingredient list it says 4 tsp of white vinegar , and in the instructions it says 4 tbs of white vinegar. Which is correct

Can’t find write eggs in OZ.. will the normal colour egg works too?

@amy. I don’t think you’ll get the same vivid blue color but it’s definitely worth a try!

Fantastic Website… It looks really professional and comes with an attractive user interface and offers helpful buyer’s guide about inflatable water slides.

I followed the instructions and left them in the refrigerator overnight. They turned out more beautiful than the photos showed!

The old Ukrainian dyed eggs are done with raw eggs, so they don’t have the floating problem. The eggs inside just dry up over a period of time, and since the shells are intact, there is no odor situation. Our family has been dying eggs for years and they keep very well.

How long do they keep, Robinanne?

As long as the shells are in tact, they will last indefinitely. I have some that have lasted for many years tucked away in my china cabinet out of harm’s way. And we don’t blow them out either. No need.

That is amazing, so i can dye them raw and there will be no odor?! Interesting

I have Ukraine eggs that are 45 years old . The inside drys out and now if you shake them you hear a dried up material inside.

I made these with blown-out eggs – tricky since they do float. I put the dye in 4″ deep casserole with handles, added the eggs, and held them down by clamping a broad, flat strainer with handles to the handles on the casserole. It worked but was a bit of a pain. After dying, I filled the small hole with a dot of wood glue, placed a small sticker over the larger hole and covered both with the spattered gold paint. The good news is that they can be saved in egg cartons and pulled out again in years to come. If I were to do it again, I would blow the eggs out after dying them. Nonetheless, they are absolutely beautiful and were the much-talked-about stars of my Easter table.

I MADE THESE EGGS AND THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!! THANK YOU! YES, I NEEDED MORE WATER BUT IT WAS NO PROBLEM, MADE TWO DOZEN AND THEY DECORATED MY TABLE BEAUTIFULLY, Happy Easter everyone!

I saw in another recipe that you should use 1 TBS to one cup of dye…..so I’m guessing 4 TBS is correct. I tried it with empty blown eggs but they were as pain as they kept floating to the top! 🙂

This looks gorgeous!!!
I would love to store them until next year…
Has anyone already tried this with “empty blown” eggs?
Should work as well, right?

These are GORGEOUS! I can’t wait to try these with my daughter 🙂

Is it 4 teaspoons or 4 tablespoons of vinegar, these really are beautiful!
Thank you!
Pam

The eggs are beautiful, and I believe I will try this, but need to know the correct amount of white vinegar. Is it 4 teaspoons or 4 tablespoons? Could anyone answer this? Thank you

Hi: Going to try these to decorate my table as my accent colours are tiffany blue. How long can they be used as a centre piece before they go bad? Just as decoration, not for eating.

Thanks

I would love to try and blow out the egg yokes and keep these….love the amazing colors!

Love the gold speckles but traipsed all over town looking for edible gold paint to no avail. Made them anyway. I would not use any other kind of paint as eggs are porous and could pose a health hazard if using regular paint.

If you can find a place that sells cake items, they sell luster dust. Mix it w vodka, precede. You will need to add vodka after awhile since it evaporates so fast. You can buy it on line, too. Or use blown eggs and gold paint. Good luck.

These are really wonderful! Such lovely shades of blue. I will definitely try these as soon as possible.

These look soooo gorgeous! I’m waiting for a gilded Robin to come back to her nest:)

I made these today, and they turned out beautifully blue. What a wonderful idea. I did add an extra 2 cups of water, though, so that I had enough liquid to cover the eggs. I used an 8X8 glass dish and 10 eggs. I had room for several more eggs, but I didn’t hard boil quite enough. The extra water that I added filled the glass dish perfectly with just a tiny bit of overflow.
Thanks for the DIY.

Thank you for sharing this! I used the “recipe” to color my own eggs for easter and actually featured the technique in my last blogpost. Of course I gave you credits for it. 🙂

Happy easter from Finland!

These are so beautiful. I wonder if you can blow the egg out, decorate and have them out year round?

Thank you! Theses are gorgeous and love the natural, easy dye technique. My sister especially love blue, and birds nests w/ eggs. A gift on itself to share with others!

Question…in the ingredient list, it calls for 4 tsp. white vinegar. In the directions, it says add 4 tbsp. white vinegar. Which amount is correct?

I’m so in love with these eggs! I may do dozens and dozens this year just because they are so beautiful! Your images are gorgeous as well! <3

BEAUTIFUL! Why does the gold paint need to be edible since it’s on the outside of the shell? Definitely doing this for Easter.

Since eggs are porous, the paint can leach through the shells .

Wow, red cabbage as dye? That’s really amazing! I love using natural ingredients to make something out of the box. Thank you for inspiring me =)

Juju Sprinkles

These are so gorgeous, and I love that gold splatter!

These are so unbelievably pretty!! Totally with you on the color.. really magical…!
I’m vegetarian but I might try these for my family who eat eggs..

Actually, you should put them in the refrigerator right from the start. No reason not to, and millions of microscopic reasons to. Thanks for the beautiful project!

That’s perfect! Like magic or something! I’m tottaly gonna try this.

Erica, these are BEAUTIFUL! Thanks for sharing!

whaaaaa hahaha who would have thought they would come out so pretty!!! love it

These are beautiful Erica! Love the little hand in that last shot too 🙂 Now if I could only figure out how to fill the eggs with chocolate since I’m not an egg lover…

You could always blow them out, use the eggs for cakes, cookies, cooking and then dye them. They’ll keep forever too.

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