Dying Eggs

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Dying Eggs


Dying eggs is a great spring family activity. As you dye eggs together you will learn that everyone has their own style and likes to make their eggs certain ways. This spring, whether you celebrate Easter or not, you can bring your friends and family together for the fun of egg dying and maybe an egg hunt to celebrate the color and beauty of spring.

Egg dying is very simple, although there are a few supplies that you will need to ask a parent or guardian to get for you. You will also need adult supervision for some of the process. Leading up to the Easter holiday you'll probably see all of the egg dying kits in your local grocery store. These make egg dying simple, but you don't need one of these kits to create beautiful eggs. This year, try dying egg without a kit. You will need: food coloring, white vinegar, water, mugs the eggs will fit into, newspaper, eggs and egg cartons.

The one item you may want and which you would need a kit for is the egg holder.  This tool allows you to dip the egg and remove it from the dye. If you don't have these egg holders, you can use spoons or bend a stiff wire into the egg holder shape. You can find a pattern for the egg holder on the back of one of the dying kits or online.

After you have collected all of the items you need, you're ready to get started dying your eggs. The first step is to hard-boil the eggs. You don't want them to break as you dye them or during your hunt, and raw eggs are too weak for egg dying. After your eggs are hard-boiled, allow them to cool. Once your eggs are cool you can start getting the dye ready.

The best way to make homemade dye is to pour hot water into large coffee mugs. Add a few drops of food coloring to the hot water and add the secret ingredient to making great dyed eggs -- a little bit of white vinegar. The vinegar helps the color adhere to your eggs. The box of food coloring will have directions with the proper proportions of color, water and dye.

Regular food coloring comes with four colors: red, yellow, green and blue. You can make more colors by mixing these together.  If you don't feel like creating your own colors, the food coloring box will have directions with how to make different colors as well.

Now that your colors and eggs are ready, you will need to cover your dying area with newspaper and make sure you are wearing work clothes. Food coloring will permanently dye anything that you get it on, so be careful. Another hint, once you have dyed your eggs, you can use the egg carton to store them in until you are ready to use them for an egg hunt.

When you are dying your eggs, completely dunk them in the dye and leave them for either a short or long time depending on how deep you want the color to be. You can also try mixing and matching colors, or dying eggs half one shade and half another. Another fun thing to try when dying eggs is to color the eggs with crayons before dying them. This produces and interesting effect because the eggshell will not be colored where you drew with the crayon.  Scotch tape will leave white areas (just pull the tape off when your egg is dry).