Last week I got inspired by the lovely hand-painted Easter eggs by Laikonik that I saw on the Famile Summerbelle website. I had visions of sitting around the kitchen table with my kids producing one egg gem after another and hanging them all over the flat… But turns out fantasy and reality could not have been any different — our egg painting experience was a complete bust!

Right from the start I came across some barriers: most eggs in France are not white but brown, so it is really hard to paint them and get a nice colour.  It is also impossible to find those little tablets you dye eggs with over here!  But I was not going to be deterred but such minor details,  so I started looking up natural ways of dying eggs. I came across loads of different suggestions, including: onion peel, rose petals and spinach which, according to the internet, all give eggs wonderful, delicate colours. I got very excited and raided my vegetable box.

I promise you that wrapping an egg in spinach leaves and rose petals and then sticking it in an old sock (again according to the internet) is no easy feat, and by the time I was finished my kids were long gone, pretending to be tigers on the other side of the flat.

Anyway, I boiled the eggs wrapped up in spinach, roses and onions and…. every single one of them came out looking like I had boiled them in the contents of a dirty nappy. They were definitely not the delicately dyed eggs I had imagined….

So here is the thing: If anyone has any tips on Easter egg colouring, or any good Easter crafts for that matter, please do share!

- Emilie