Enjoying Easter without the Artificial Dyes

One quick trip down your local Target or Walmart seasonal aisles may prove to be one of the most colorful and happiest places for most kids and families, but to ours, it’s an aggravating and unhappy trip. And Easter basket filling and egg dying, this year is turning out to be very miserable.  But after a quick internet research, I found some great choices to enjoy Easter this year without the artificial dyes.

I went shopping a few weeks ago, before all the awesome stuff was gone, for the girls’ Easter baskets.  I like to fill the eggs with non-candy items, but I will say that candy has always been a part of Easter in our house.  It is what it is.

I not only have to shop for items for Kelsie’s basket that are tree nut {and shellfish} free, but also dye free.  That is next to impossible!  You can find one or the other, but finding both in one item, it’s hard.  But, I don’t give up that easily.

Now, as far as your egg dying choices go…You can dye eggs with vegetables at home {thanks Sherri for this idea!}.  There are numerous ideas on Pinterest to do just that.  This was going to be a choice that we were going to make but then I started Googling with a little more detail and come up with an easier choice.  The latter is not more cost effeficent, but sometimes when you’ve been doing something the long way for a while, the short cut is a great idea.

I found two different choices, one of which we are going to go with.  I’ll definitely update, of course it will be after we use it, but I want to document how our eggs turned out and the ease or difficulty in using the kit so that  we will know which one to use again next year.

 

There is an online store called Eco-Kids and they just so happen to sale an eco-egg coloring kit for $14.00.

 

 

 

The other choice cost a few dollars more and is from a site called Abe’s Market.  Their Nature’s Magic Egg Dyeing Kit is from a company called Wee Can Too.  It’s a little more at $16.00.

 

As far as candy goes, World Market has a decent variety of candy that is dye free as well as tree nut free.  We’ve gotten a few things from there before.  The brands seem to be from Asia and Europe. Go figure on the Europe, remember they have those strict guidelines over there when it comes to artificial dyes! 

The other choice we have of course is online shopping.  I found a great little place that has tons of candy and even custom allergen filters, that we can tweak to suite our needs.  Natural Candy Store has a huge variety.  Some of the candy is a little pricey, but when your wanting the best or you have allergies to work with, you don’t have a big choice of where to shop. 

Of course, this post won’t help you much if you live near a Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods.  We are two hours away from both. :-/

Happy dye free Easter!