A few days ago, I posted about the tradition of dyeing, giving and celebrating with eggs for Easter and spring. Today I got to attend a lovely workshop, where we dyed eggs with plant dyes, in the Mill Valley store Maison Reve, under the guidance of Molly de Vries. It was a lot of fun and wonderful to gather with neighbors of all ages to enjoy a time-honored art. Egg dyeing is easy, inexpensive, creative and limitless. I enjoyed seeing everyone’s decorating ideas and techniques.
The plant dyes had been created in advance using onion skin, turmeric, cabbage, and beets.
Molly also provided tape, string, crayons, and beeswax, so people could create designs on their eggs, which would often show up white after the eggs absorbed the dye. (For complete dyeing instructions, see my earlier post.)
I used beeswax to make little dots, which I put all over the egg before soaking it in the onion skin dye for about 40 minutes.
I had help removing the wax, to reveal the white of the eggshell (and a little wax, which the group liked) underneath.
Happy Easter and Spring.
Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman
Read Part 1: Dye Eggs Like the Ancients with Plant Dyes
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