Natural Tea-Dyed Easter Eggs

We’re ditching the paint this year and making natural dyes using tea. Creating a natural dye is a bit of a longer process, but the beautiful colors that you will create during this process is rewarding. The colors that you begin with are not necessarily the colors that you will end with. The instructions below call for alum powder and white vinegar, so if you don’t have those in your pantry, here’s your sign to pick some up. If you regulary keep alum in your pantry, please share what you use it for because this was honestly not something that we had on hand.

So let’s get into the preperation steps. Dying eggs with tea is a fun activity and can be done with children. They will get to put on their scientist cap, because we will be using chemical reactions to create new colors. With that being said, you may want to pull out some clothes that you don’t mind getting a little messy. You will also want to store the tea dye in containers that you don’t mind getting stained, although glass and Pyrex are pretty easy to clean with this activity. Alum powder is a base and white vinegar (acetic acid) is an acid, and when mixed together they react to create aluminum acetate. The aluminum acetate helps to bind the natural tea dye to the eggs, and without it the tea dye may not stick to the eggs very well or the color may fade easily. Letting the eggs soak for at least 24 – 48 hours will help the colors to develop and give them time to adhere to the eggs.

What You’ll Need:

• 4 cups of water per tea
• 1 dozen white eggs (Keep the carton)
• 4 Steepers Only Ginger Turmeric tea pyramids
• 4 Steepers Only Slumber Party tea pyramids
• 4 Steepers Only Hibiscus Apple Cinnamon tea pyramids
• 4-5 storage containers with lids or plastic wrap (glass is preferred)
• 1 tsp alum powder per 1 cup of tea
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar per 1 cup of tea

Preparation:

1. Boil the eggs
2. Add 4 cups water to a medium or large saucepan. Heat until boiling and then turn to low until the tea color is well developed.
3. Transfer the tea to the storage container that you will soak the eggs in.
4. Add 4 tsp of alum powder and mix.
5. Add 4 tsp of white vinegar and mix.
6. Place 4 eggs into the container, seal and refrigerate for 24-48 hours.
7. Repeat these steps with the other teas
8. For presentation, I kept the egg carton and placed arranged the eggs inside at the end.