Easy, Inexpensive Easter Eggs

There are so many egg-dyeing kits on the market now. They range in price from under $1.00 to close to $5 each! We have many ideas to share that will help you make fun, interesting eggs from the cheapest kits available and a few items around the house. You will, of course, start with hard-boiled eggs. Avoid waste by adding a pinch of salt to the pan of water to reduce cracks in the eggs! Prepare the dye in the basic kit; most brands recommended adding water once the vinegar has dissolved the dye tablet, but using straight vinegar makes for bolder colors.

While your eggs are cooling, you can raid your junk drawer for the supplies you’ll need to design your eggs:

• Rubber bands: Wrap the eggs before dipping into your favorite color. Once dyed and dried, remove the rubber-band for interesting stripe patterns.
• Crayons: Use a white crayon or another color to draw designs, words and pictures onto your egg before dipping into the dye.
• Stickers: You can add festive stickers to dyed & dried eggs or attach fun shapes to the eggs before dying. Remove the stickers after the eggs are dried for fun shapes.
• Masking Tape: Wrap masking tape around the egg before dying. Remove tape to reveal the design.
• Hole-punch Reinforcements: Stick these onto the eggs before dyeing for unique polka dot spots!
• Rubber Cement: Drip glue onto eggs in a random pattern. When glue is dried, dip egg into dye. Once the dye has set, peel off the glue to reveal your pattern.
• Q-Tips: Dip your cotton swab into full strength dissolved dye tablets. Paint designs onto eggs.
• Get crafty: Decorate dyed eggs by gluing on leftover craft supplies such as sequins, feathers, ribbons and more!

Be sure to store the finished eggs properly so they can be used for recipes later in the week. Deviled eggs, egg salads and green salad dishes can be made from these. Don’t forget to save the colorful eggshells for your kids to make beautiful mosaic pictures!

Originally published on 4/7/2009