Happy .... EASTER! LOL :/

So, I tried an interesting technique for dying eggs this year but it didn't turn out like I wanted so .... I was pouting about it... and wasn't going to blog about it! Waah.  LOL

But a friend (you know who you are and I thank you!) encouraged me to post the results so here they are!!

Have you heard about dying Easter Eggs with natural things like red onion skins??  Well, on Facebook, I saw a great idea on how to add to that so I thought I'd try it!  And, as usual, I of course wanted to put my own little twist on the idea :)  In the FB post, they showed how to lay a leaf or flower on the egg then secure it with a piece of panty hose then after the egg is dyed, take off the panty hose and leaf and you have the imprint of the leaf where they dye couldn't go!  Awesome, huh?  OK, I can't wait and you might not want to either so, instead of reading a whole bunch before you see how it turned out, here is the end result!  Then I'll tell you how I got there :)

So, I went to the store to get supplies.  There is a fun little bargain store about a mile from my house that usually has whatever crafty type supplies I'm looking for.  The first item - panty hose.  (I did have some of my Gram's old panty hose here but.... erm.... no....)  Well, they didn't have any panty hose in the store!!  Ahh!  So, I turned on my "resourceful/plan B/won't stop 'til I get it" part of my brain and started roaming the aisles.  And I found quite an interesting replacement right in the Easter aisle!

It's a mesh bag to cover Easter Baskets!  I also found rubber bands that looked like they might be interesting.  See, here's a key to doing creative stuff -- let your mind wander and try to see things in a different way and try to "explore all options and possibilities" (If my kids are reading that they're probably rolling their eyes because I've said that a billion and two times LOL)  And I also needed the rubber bands to hold the mesh on the egg.  You can also see, in the pic, the choices for plants.  A few came from my houseplants and a few came from outside.  

So, the next step is getting the plant on to the egg!  I kinda sorta measured :) and cut the mesh into squares:

Then I put the egg on top of the plant and carefully gathered the mesh and wrapped it around the egg.  This may take a few tries - the picture below was not my first attempt LOL:

Then I secured the ends with a rubber band and kind of gathered the loose ends with each twist of the rubber band:

OK, that part is done!  Whew!  Now..... what other fun things can we do???

YYyeeaaahhhh..... Looks easy enough right??  LOL  Put on some music and breath deep and just keep working on it.  Rubber bands are snappy little things that don't always stay where you want them to but, as you can see in the final result picture, it did work :)  Once again, these were not my first attempts.  And in the next picture, you get to benefit from something that makes reading blogs and watching other people do something very useful --- You get to learn from my experience!  And my experience is --- don't do this LOL:

 Sure, a spotted egg would be cool and all ... but how do we then get the spots of wax OFF the eggs???  Not as easy as you might think :) it ended up not being worth the effort.  Lesson learned.  Possibility explored.  :)

And now it's time for coloring!!:

 So, once again, I thought I'd see what fun things I have around my kitchen to use for dye!  Of course I used red onions.  I always have them in my kitchen :) And I had just gotten some yummy grapes that looked like they could be a fun color.  And can you guess what the orange substance is???  OK, I'll tell ya LOL.  It's canned pumpkin!  Why not try it, I thought???  As you can see in the final result pic, there are no orange or yellow eggs.  Only brown from the onions and lavender from the grapes :)  So one more thing you don't have to try and get bad results!  You're welcome!! :)

Oh - add about a tablespoon of white vinegar to each pot.  That helps the dye stick to the eggs.

Also - as you can see from the pic, I left the foods in the pans.  It seemed like it would help get the colors even darker:

I left the eggs in here all day!  I wanted to see how dark the color could get.  And as you can see from the final results, the colors are pretty cool!  Here's the pic again:

So, to explain a few things - the one second from the left is done by writing on the egg with a crayon.  It's a little messy but it was kind of a last minute thought/experiment.  You can see the eggs made with the rubber bands.  I was pretty pleased with those!  The two 'artsy' looking ones are the best of the eggs that leaves were attached to.  I didn't think about the lines from the mesh bag showing up but it's a pretty cool effect!  I think with the panty hose, the leaf would have been more firmly on the egg and it would have been a clearer leaf shape but this looks pretty nice.  I think it's more 'my kind of egg' than if it were all clean and precise :)

And something interesting about the eggs from the grapes - they had a 'substance' on them - something gritty from the grapes.  It wasn't horrible but it ... felt weird.... LOL