Green Options

Yesterday Kelly shared a great post on how to reuse silk ties for egg dyes.  A couple times a week my mom and I watch Martha Stewart together and we were just as eager as Kelly to try this egg dying technique.  Mom went thrifting at Goodwill to find cheap silk ties and blouses that were definitely past their prime.  

We used the large end of the ties to cut out a large swatch to cover an egg, but we saw a lot of waste with the rest of the tie.  To use up the remaining skinny part of the tie we cut strips to wrap around the eggs.  This resulted in alternating colors and patterns around the egg…a truly stunning effect.  Keep reading to find out how we did it.

Ah, Easter memories. I remember those brightly colored plastic dye sets. You know the ones. All that packaging, plastic parts, and chemical dyes. The cute little bunny labels and little plastic egg dipping spoons.

They are still available, of course. And for busy working mother types, this is tempting. Especially for the craft and creatively impaired such as myself. But they are essentially the opposite of what I believe in: made from chemicals, created and shipped from China (can you say carbon footprint), and packaged in and made from gobs of plastic.

So I was happy when my mother in law passed along a clipping from none other than Ladies Home Journal. Not exactly the site I’d go to for green advice, but they had this short article about how to dye eggs naturally with ingredients found in your kitchen. How cool is that?

Here are the directions:

When we first discussed a week dedicated to reusing plastic Easter eggs my first thoughts were “what?” So I turned to friends and family for help and inspiration but the replies were all the same: “What are they?”

The reason being that this seems to be one of the few holiday-related retail opportunities that the UK hasn’t latched onto yet - and from what I’ve learnt I really hope we don’t. Don’t get me wrong, we certainly know how to create seasonal waste - the amount of packaging for the millions of chocolate Easter eggs lining the shelves is obscene.

I grew up thinking of plastic easter eggs as fun and harmless. They don’t wear out, so you can keep using them for years. They also come in handy if you need an impromptu set of maracas.

After seeing bags and bags of them at thrift stores, though, I realized that not everyone holds on to them forever. (Come to think of it, I’m not sure where my childhood set went. Note to self: interrogate mother about how she disposed of eggs.)

So if you’re not going to continue using them for festive holiday celebrations, or if you’ve found a stash that’s begging for re-use, what can you do? As we’ve seen, Kelly’s using hers to organize craft supplies. Autumn found a tutorial on felting wool eggs using the plastic ones as a base.

Now it’s my turn. I’ll pose it as a riddle. What do you get when you combine a pizza box and a few dozen plastic easter eggs?

Half eaten boxes of marshmallow Peeps; straw from Easter baskets strewn about; slowly coming out of a sugar high; plastic egg halves littering the floor. Does this sound like you and the aftermath of Easter? Feeling a little unsure of what to do with those plastic eggs now that the hunt is over and the candy eaten?

Well have no fear because this week CAGW will tackle that very question and offer up nifty solutions to reusing your Easter eggs!

Easter is upon us again! This year, why not say goodbye to those prepackaged kits and dye your eggs with vegetables? For fantastic instructions to make beautiful eggs like those in this photo, please visit Billi-Jean of My Bountiful Life!

Photo copyright Billi-Jean.com. Used with permission.