Dyeing Easter Dinosaur Eggs without a Kit-- a "how to dye" with pics

I love coloring and decorating Easter eggs, I have many fond childhood memories of Easter and dyeing eggs. When I was a little girl, my mom would buy the kits that came with stickers and extra cute stuff that kept me busy. Now that I'm older, I don't buy the kits but I still dye Easter eggs with my husband. I'll show you how to make some beautiful eggs using items you probably have in your kitchen right now. It's super easy and the results are beautiful, so let's get to it.

For these dinosaur eggs, I used the following ingredients:

• hard-boiled eggs
• hot water
• vinegar
• oil
• food coloring*

*I used a standard set of food colors as well as a "neon" set.

You'll also need the following items:

• jar or mug*
• spoon or tongs
• fork
• pie plate or shallow dish
• tablespoon for measuring
• teaspoon for measuring
• newspaper to protect your work area
• pin board or egg carton for drying eggs
• latex gloves unless you don't mind food-colored-fingers ;)

*I used mason jars purely to take some beautiful pictures. Use whatever you have that will allow you completely submerge your egg. You'll only need this item and follow this step if you want a base coat on your egg.

1. Prepare your jars with your desired colors. Food coloring usually has a color chart on the packaging, or you can experiment. I used a very helpful color wheel from a Martha Stewart egg coloring app that I have on my iPhone. In each mason jar, I used one cup of hot water and 1tsp of vinegar.
2. If you want multicolored eggs, you can begin by submerging them until they are colored to your liking. This will be your base coat. Otherwise skip this step.
3. Pour half of one of your color mixtures into a pieplate. Put a tablespoon (or more or less, to your liking) of oil (I used vegetable) in the plate with the colored water and vinegar. Use a fork to disperse your oil glob into many smaller oil globs.
4. Place your egg in the pan and use your finger or a utensil to roll it around. Experiment rolling more and less and faster and slower. Results will vary. For more multicolored dimensions, add a few drops of another color right into the pie plate and roll your egg like before.

I let my eggs dry on top of an upside down egg carton. These eggs will be a little oily, so I like to wipe them off when they're done air drying. The oil actually gives them a nice shine, too.

Heather Says: This is a fantastic way to color eggs. The colors and designs are so rich that it looks like you spent money on one of those expensive kits. Use this how-to and skip the kits. You'll save money and you can boast that you did it "from scratch." You also have an almost infinite array of color combinations at your fingertips by using food coloring rather than the tabs that come in the kits. Have fun with this because no two eggs will be alike-- like snowflakes but dinosaur eggs instead!