Coloring Easter Eggs

Coloring eggs at Easter time has become a traditional craft project for many kids. Considering how easy it is to create Easter eggs, it’s not surprising that numerous families enjoy a spring afternoon together creating many beautiful Easter egg designs.

If you’ve never dyed Easter eggs before, then you don’t know what you’re missing! Try one or all of the egg-dying techniques below and have an egg-cellent time with your children.

Before You Start
No matter which technique you use, make sure you cover your work surface with lots and lots of newspaper. Egg dying may be fun, but it can also be messy. That’s why you’ll want to make sure you have plenty of paper towel on hand and that all craft participants are appropriately dressed in old clothing. If you and your kids have paint shirts, then haul them out.

You may also want to construct a stand of some sort to place your eggs on while they dry. An old toilet paper or paper towel roll cut down to size is perfect for this job.

Food Dye and Eggs
This is perhaps the most standard way of dying Easter eggs because it is the simplest method. For this project you will need:

  • Hard boiled eggs
  • Mugs
  • Boiled water
  • Food dye
  • Spoons
  • Vinegar
  • Shortening

1. Pour the boiling water into the mugs and mix with one to two teaspoons of vinegar

2. Add a few drops of food dye until the water reaches the desired color

3. Put eggs into colored water for a few minutes before retrieving them with a spoon

4. Once the eggs are dry, you can rub them with a bit of shortening to give them a nice glossy finish

Dying the Natural Way
If you prefer not to use food coloring, then why not use food to color your eggs? To color the eggs themselves, this method is pretty much the same as above. If you want the color to be especially dark, then leave the eggs in with the dye over night.

So what can you use to dye your eggs? Well, pretty much anything:

  • Red: beets, cranberries, raspberries, red onion skins
  • Blue: Canned blueberries, blackberries, red cabbage leaves
  • Yellow: Cumin, turmeric, celery leaves
  • Orange: Yellow onion skins or add beet juice to your yellow dye
  • Green: Spinach leaves, kale, parsley (can also dip yellow egg into blue dye)
  • Beige or Brown: Coffee, tea

Once you have your dyes picked out, simply place them in a pan with some water and let them boil until the water is the color you want. To get even more color from your ingredients, crush the berries, fruit or vegetables that you are using as you boil them. When the water is the right color, pour the water into mugs (leave your ingredients in the pan) and start dying.

Egg-ceptional Decorating
If plainly dyed eggs just aren’t enough for you, then you may want to spruce them up with a bit of decoration. Some simple ways to decorate your eggs include:

  • Before you dye them, use a white crayon to write on the eggs. The dye won’t settle where you have written with the crayon.

  • To make your eggs really sparkle, add some glitter! Just mix equal parts glue and water, paint your egg and then sprinkle some glitter over the egg. If you’re adding glitter to dyed eggs, make sure the dye has dried before you paint on the glue.

  • Using some scrap paper and a hole puncher, punch out some holes and collect the little paper dots. Using the same glue mixture as above, paint your egg and stick your dots wherever you like. For a more colorful approach, use different pieces of paper to punch out your dots.

  • A favorite for many families is the marbleized egg. This simple technique can help make your eggs look very unique. Simply add 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil to your coloring mugs, dip your eggs and see what happens!

  • If you have some glue mixture left over, then consider decoupaging your eggs. Simply paint on the glue mixture, stick a nice piece of wrapping paper, stickers, your favorite comic strip or any thing else you’d like onto the egg and then paint over it again with the glue mixture. Don’t forget to let it dry before you show off your work of art.

  • Tissue or crepe paper can also dye your eggs or add color to the eggs you have dyed already. Simply wet a dry egg and put pieces of tissue paper on the egg. When the egg dries, the tissue paper will fall off but leaves a colored mark behind.

  • If you want to use your decorated eggs to hang on an Easter branch, then you should hollow the egg out before you decorate it. Using a raw egg, carefully poke a small hole at the top and bottom of the egg. If you can, make the hole at the bottom slightly bigger. Gently blow on the top hole, emptying the egg out through the larger hole on the bottom. Once everything is out, decorate the egg using one of the methods above. Finally, string a fine piece of wire through the holes and hang on your Easter branch.