Category: Craft

Natural Egg Dye

On By CarynIn Craft

This year we tried dying our hard boiled eggs with natural dyes! It was an interesting process, and another that definitely has a learning curve.

Natural dyes for hard boiled eggs (no vinegar in the purple cabbage solution on the left)

We roughly followed Fresh Egg Daily’s instructions, and bought blueberries, beets, yellow onions, turmeric (buying a small bag of this in the bulk section was less expensive), and purple cabbage. We halved the recipe in most cases, using only 2 cups of water and about 1.5 cups of veggies (or 1 Tbsp turmeric), and added 2 Tbsp vinegar, except for the purple cabbage. Now vinegar in the dye is what helps the dye set on the shell of the egg, but if you make a solution of purple cabbage juice acidic (which is what happens when you add vinegar), the liquid turns pink instead of blue, so I did not add vinegar to that jar. We also tried boiling the turmeric and purple cabbage together for the green color, then boiling them separately and adding about a cup of each liquid together in a different jar. I had already added the vinegar to the turmeric solution, so the “boiled separately” solution was a rusty brown (and I hid it in the pictures, because it was not a pretty color solution).

Eggs in solution in the refrigerator

We put hard boiled eggs in each jar and refrigerated them longer than recommended. We pulled the blueberry and beet after 48 hours, and the others after 72 hours.

From left to right: blueberries, purple cabbage (no vinegar), purple cabbage and turmeric, turmeric, yellow onion, beet

Results: I should have taken pictures of the blueberry dye and the beet dye right after I pulled them out of the solution, and then after I rinsed off the particulates. This picture is a day later, and the colors have started to go brown. The most surprising result was that even though the turmeric and purple cabbage solution color was brown, the eggs turned out green. The two darker green eggs had more vinegar in the solution. The purple cabbage solution without vinegar barely colored the eggs, but where there was a crack in the shell, definitely colored the egg white a blue color. I picked off a bit of shell on the beet dyed eggs as well to show the egg white color (no longer white).

Thanks for sticking with the length of this post. Here is a video of chicks learning to perch and fly as your reward.

Feeder trays

On By CarynIn chickens, Craft

My primary book reference “Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens” by Gail Damerow suggests putting feed on pieces of paper for days old chicks, then switching to a shallow tray once they have all figured out what to peck. I have some card stock I’ve been trying to get through (I thought I was ordering bright white, but what I ordered had rainbow flecks, ugh), so I used some of that to make simple little trays. The nice thing about the trays is they can be thrown away when they get poopy. But it will be even nicer when they eat just out of the hanging feeders. Any who, here is the video:

Sun and Moon

On By CarynIn Craft, Uncategorized
Digital composite image

Last week there was a beautiful moon near the horizon and a stunning sunrise, in opposite directions. I couldn’t photograph them in the same shot. I thought that if I had a mirror, I might be able to capture both with some experimentation with angles, but alas, I had no mirror and the minimal focal distance of my lens is longer than my arm. So I put a composite image together in Photoshop. I think it came out nicely, and it was certainly fun to experiment!

Spoon two

On By CarynIn Craft
New handmade spoon

I made another spoon! This time for my sister. I used more of the applewood, and it went a little faster this time (80 grit belts on my belt sander helped).

I really like how ergonomic the handle came out!
Shaped and sanded spoon
Side view of the spoon showing the nice wave
After sanding to 320 grit, I wet it with water, let it dry, then sand again.
Wood burned designs this time with apple blossoms and a bee!
Detail of the woodburning at the spoon neck
I also wood burned “apple” on the back since it is made of apple wood.
I finished the spoon with three coats of olive oil.

Silly socks

On By CarynIn Craft

Today is World Down Syndrome Day (3-21, for three copies of the 21st chromosome, also known as trisomy 21). Not only on this day, but on all days we should appreciate what people with Down Syndrome bring to the world. My life has been transformed by my youngest, but not in a bad way. I have discovered new priorities and have re-evaluated what I consider a successful life, for the better.

To bring awareness to Down Syndrome, and go from awareness to acceptance, many people wear silly socks, or mismatched socks on WDSD. Chromosomes look a little sock-like, especially when given false color!

Since this is a craft blog, I want to give a huge shout out to Paper Daisy Creations for her amazing knit along #lotsofsocks fundraiser! I did not finish my socks, but I have learned a lot, have the desire to learn more and improve, and have a beautiful skein of blue and yellow that will eventually be a pair of matched mismatched socks. (What? I have an unfinished project? Yes. Even I sometimes do not make a deadline. Life goes on. There will be time for socks.) For now, here is a picture of my test socks, in progress.

Unfinished test socks

I’m glad I did test socks with yarn on hand first before I use my special yarn. I’ve learned at least three new knitting techniques regarding sock knitting, and there has definitely been a learning curve!