Easter Egg decorating

I’m planning way ahead, but how does everyone decorate their Easter eggs? I always just buy the kits in stores but I seen some great painted eggs that look so crafty. I’ve read about some ways to swirl them with food color that looks nice.

We color eggs here.

My oldest daughter, who is now twenty-seven, learned how to make the Ukrainian Easter eggs.  You can google pysanky or check this site: 

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~yakowenk/pysanky/index.html

Anyway, if you have the tools the process is lengthy but not difficult and the results are amazing.  You can get kits for it on various websites.

I actually need some advice on this subject!  We have our own chickens, who lay brown eggs.  I hate to buy eggs just to dye them… any ideas on ways the kids can dye the brown eggs?  (they are a pretty brown with speckles!)

Last year, my son and I did Easter eggs by wrapping them in rubber bands to create stripes of white around the egg. We also did some polka dot eggs by using hole reinforcement stickers as a mask before applying the dye. Both methods were really easy, even for an impatient toddler! The results were prettier than plain eggs too!

My son was only 18 months last year at Easter, so my mother-in-law was creative when it came to dipping the eggs in the dye. She cut the feet off a few pairs of old pantyhose, and then put the eggs in the bottom of the pantyhose. This way, he didn’t break or drop the eggs, trying to balance them on spoons or hold them in his hands. It worked pretty well, and the pantyhose left a nice, light pattern on the eggs, too.

Using white wax candles are another great way to add some designs. The color won’t take to the wax, so anywhere that you rub the candle will stay the original white of the egg shell. Drawing names can be hard since you can’t see what you are writing, but it’s great for putting stripes or dots on.

Debbie,
Our chickens lay brown eggs too.  You are limited with what you can do about dying brown eggs.  You can do the wax thing and then dye the eggs in darker colors.  The brown always comes through but with the wax designs on them it looks quite nice, in an earthy sort of way.  For brighter colors I go ahead and buy free range, cruelty free organic WHITE eggs at the grocery..It is only once a year, after all.  LOL

I’ve also seen some beautiful dyed brown eggs. The brown does come through as Marye mentioned, but if you do it with earthy colors like dark green and deep blue, it looks really neat. Place in a straw-type basket with natural grass, sticks, and leaves would make a nice display.

I was looking at some Easter Egg kits at the craft store today and saw some that make metallic eggs with gold and silver. They looked great and are unusual, but I wonder if they really turn out that well or if the color gets streaky. Has anyone ever tried this?

Hi Holly,

I haven’t seen those metallic kits yet, but it sounds like they could be quite beautiful if you’re looking for something fancier. I imagine you could apply pieces of gold leaf to dyed eggs and get a similar effect. It might not look as good with pastel colored eggs, but if you’re patient and let the eggs sit in the dye until they are closer to jewel tones, they could really be fantastic.

My kids have always used crayons to draw on the eggs before dipping. My boys would just write their names, but my girls are more artistic. They’ve drawn simple flowers and then used a spoon to dip the egg halfway in blue for the sky, and then dried them with a paper towel and dipped the other half in green to make the grass below. You end up with cute little flower garden eggs. 

I’m also looking forward to coloring Easter eggs with my daughter this year. She is now three years old and excited about the holiday. She really enjoys arts and craft projects. We have a bunch of Easter egg color kits that my Grandma gave us. Yet, I’m also looking for some ideas to make some of the eggs different from the normal kit coloring look. Any ideas on what type of egg coloring projects work best with a toddler? I’m imagine that the kit is probably the best bet for this age.

Adrienne

Adrienne,
I think the basic kits are probably the best way to go with a toddler. In the past few years, Ryan got bored with the whole process and I ended up finishing them myself. This year I hope to do something more impressive since he’s really looking forward to making eggs but I don’t want to get too creative or I’ll end up with half-finished eggs.

A lot of the kits on the market this year are a bit too commercial for my tastes. Although kids love them, there is something about that bothers me about Easter eggs with characters like Sponge Bob or Hannah Montana.

I love the crayon idea, I’ve never heard of that before. Sounds like a project to try this year; I’m another mommy who isn’t wild about SpongeBob themed Easter eggs.

I actually used small scrapbook rub-ons on my eggs one year, but this was before my son was born and back when I had much more free time. You can get some really cool effects if you’re patient!

Okay, I just ran across some of my cake decorating stuff and had a brainstorm. What about using royal icing to add designs to pastel colored eggs? Royal icing is the stuff that dries hard. I think plain white used to make dots, stripes, wavy lines and more could look really cool if you have any piping experience. Bakers do use royal icing to create those panoramic eggs sold around Easter, so I think this idea could work.

I think the royal icing sounds like a great idea. I wonder if it would crack off of the curved surface, though? I don’t have any experience with this type of frosting, but I’d love to see any samples of how they turn out if anyone gives it a shot.