Easy Step-by-Step Easter Egg Dyeing: From Hard Boiled to Beautiful

By brooklynsupper | April 21st, 2011 at 10:52 am

You don’t need anything that’s not already in your kitchen to have a good time turning ordinary hard boiled eggs into beautiful Easter eggs with your kids. This was only our third year dyeing Easter eggs as a family and our first doing it without a kit, and we found it to be much more fun and relaxing this way. When you’re working with the materials at hand, you feel a lot more free to experiment, whereas using a kit can feel kind of like a directed activity. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s nice to do things your own way.

The other advantage to using food dye is that you can mix colors to get your own shades. The back of the box of food coloring we used had some suggested ratios, which we used, but we also made up some colors of our own. I think children older than ours would probably be really interested by the subtle differences they could make with different combos.
Easy Step by Step Easter Egg Dyeing

for the eggs
12 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt

to dye the eggs
food coloring (natural food coloring is available at many health food stores)
white vinegar
water
rubber bands
white crayon
bowls
newspaper
paper towels
spoons

Step 1. Hard boil your eggs
Fill a large stock pot with cold water, carefully place your eggs in a single layer on the bottom. Bring to a boil a gentle boil for one minute. Remove pot from heat, cover, and let eggs stand for 12 minutes (longer if you like your eggs extra hard). Remove from water, and set eggs out to cool completely.

Step 2. Prepare your dye
Lay newspaper over your workspace. Fill bowls with 1/2 cup water, 1 tablespoon vinegar, and 20 drops or so of food coloring. For mixed colors, follow the instructions on the food coloring box or experiment.

Step 3. Create effects
For more dramatic eggs, color them with a crayon or wrap tightly with multiple rubber bands.

Step 4. Dye the eggs
Immerse the eggs and spoon the dye over them until you reach your desired color. Remove them to an egg container to dry, turning them occasionally so that the excess dye won’t settle in one place. If you have used rubber bands, wait until the egg is completely dry to remove.

Want more Easter egg decorating tips? Check out “Decorating to Dye For: 8 unconventional ways to dress up those eggs!“

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