DIY Gold Foil Eggs

I can’t remember the last time that I dyed eggs for Easter but knew I wanted to test out a DIY that didn’t call for traditional food coloring dyes. I came across one that uses red cabbage to create a robin’s egg color which I found fascinating.

I have never used gold foil before, but when I was looking around for some Easter decor ideas, using gold foil was one that was coming up a lot, so I had to try it out. This is actually a combination of two ideas that I came across that I thought I’d put together.

When I tried this out, I didn’t hard boil the eggs; you could easily hard boil them and then let them cool before coloring.

Materials Needed:

• 5 cups of water
• One red cabbage
• 4 tbsp. white vinegar
• Eggs (up to a dozen)
• Paint brush and/or sponge brush
• Clear varnish
• Gold leaf

Step 1: Add 5 cups of water to a pot and boil.

Step 2: Next you’ll want to chop up the red cabbage and add it to the boiling water. The original recipe called for a whole red cabbage. I only used half as a whole red cabbage seemed too much for 5 cups of water.

Step 3: Continue to let the water boil for about 10 minutes.

Step 4: Turn heat down to a simmer. Let the cabbage simmer in the water for 35-45 minutes.

Step 5: Remove from heat.

Step 6: Once the cabbage and the water have completely cooled, remove the cabbage from the pot. Put the eggs in the cabbage-colored water so that they are completely submerged and add 4 tablespoons of white vinegar. NOTE: At this point, I transferred the water and the eggs to a bowl so that the eggs would be submerged in the water.

Step 7: Leave the eggs in the water for at least an hour. The longer you leave the eggs in the water, the more saturated the color will be.

This is the color of the eggs after one hour.

I left this egg in for three hours. (You could move the eggs in the water after an hour or so to ensure that the color is evenly distributed around the egg.)

This egg was in the water for seven hours.

If you want, you could leave the eggs in the water overnight. If you do this, I recommend putting them in the fridge.

Step 8: When the eggs are as saturated as you want them to be, set them out to dry.

Step 9: While the eggs are drying, break up the gold leaf into smaller pieces that will fit onto the egg. I used gold leaf sheets so I crumbled the sheets to create varied shapes and sizes.

Step 10: Once the eggs are dry, lightly paint them, with the varnish, where you plan to put the gold foil.  While it is still wet, add the gold leaf. It helps to have a small paint brush to pat down the gold leaf. Then go over with more varnish. (For more of a textured look, you could use less varnish on top or none at all. I did this on some of the eggs.)

Step 11: Once you have covered the eggs with the gold leaf, allow it to dry.

Step 12: Once the eggs have dried, you could add a top coat of varnish for more protection.

Repeat Steps 10-12 with each egg.

It was incredible to see the color of the eggs change just from using red cabbage, water and vinegar. These eggs could be used as part of a centerpiece or a part of individual place settings for Easter.

I’m looking forward to using other natural ingredients to create other colors.