Dying Eggs Without A Kit

With Easter upon us many people, parents especially, will likely be hitting the stores for egg dying kits. However, it is not necessary to buy a kit to decorate your eggs. While you likely won't design a Fabrige style egg after reading this article, you should be proficient in basic egg decoration. The best part is that it is simple and you will find most, if not all, ingredients are already in your cupboard.

Basic Dye Recipe

10 drops of your favorite food coloring. More or less drops may be used depending on how intense you want the color.

1 Tbsp white vinegar

1/2 cup water

That's it. Dunk your hard-boiled egg, let it soak for 30 to 60 seconds and voila.

Variations

Okay, here's where it gets interesting. With the basic recipe above you can make a single color egg or you can dunk first one side then the other, to get multiple colors, but here are some other options:

Rubber Bands: If you wrap rubber bands around your egg before dying, the result will be an egg with a pattern on it. You could first dye your egg one color, rinse it, put on the rubber bands and then dye it another color if you want to add color to the resulting pattern.

Sticker Stenciling: stickers are another great way to prevent dye from touching portions of the egg. Try using letter stickers to put a child's monogram or even complete name on their egg. After it has been dyed, simply remove the stickers.

Tie Dying: Rinse the boiled eggs in vinegar the put them in a colander in the sink. Take your bottles of dye and put a few drops on each egg then gentle agitate colander and allow eggs to set for about 30 seconds. You can repeat this process with up to three colors-- more than that and the colors start to get muddy.

Crayons: Boil eggs in a combination of water and vinegar--approximately 1 1/2 Tblsp vinegar to every cup of water. Remove one egg at a time, leaving others in water to stay warm until ready to use. Using paper towel to handle still-warm eggs, use crayons to color on eggs. The heat from the egg will cause the crayon to melt. Be careful not to smudge when turning egg. Warm eggs can also be placed back in the egg carton and sprinkled with crayon shavings.

Word of Caution

For any eggs you plan on eating, make sure to use only food grade materials. When boiling eggs, the protective coating is washed away leaving pores in the shell open to bacteria, etc. For more details, check out the USDA link below.