Easter egg tips and tricks

Ditch the packaged egg decorating kits! You probably already have everything you need for great Easter eggs in your house.

Basic colouring

Did you know that you can use regular food colour to dye your eggs? I have been using it since I was a child and gives a very vibrant or light pastel colour, which ever you like, it just depends on how many drops of colouring you put in your water.

Here's how; Combine 1tsp of vinegar with a half cup of hot water and a few drops of food colouring. Many boxes of food colouring comes with a colour chart or you can follow this one that I found with a quick google search. Keep in mind that all brands on the colouring will vary slightly and that using less will give a more subtle colour while using more will create a deeper colour. Food colouring can also dye your plastic containers and wooden items like your table.  Coffee mugs work great for this project because they are deep enough to submerge the whole egg and are made out of a ceramic which is not likely to stain. As with all craft projects with kids you might not want to do this while your kids are dressed in their Sunday best as it may stain clothes. The chances of staining will depend on the brand of food colouring you choose though I find it's pretty safe. For best results, let the water cool before you start dipping the eggs.

To dry the eggs

I hope you have been saving toilet paper rolls or paper towel rolls. Take a few of these and cut them into half inch disks. These disks are perfect for placing the wet dyed eggs on instead of back into the egg cartons to keep the colour from smearing and to display them right away. 

A little more fun?

Sneak into the kids crayon collection and collect the white crayons. If you find your kids don't actually use white crayons you can keep them with the rest of your adult crafting stuff too. If you don't have any white crayons yellow ones will also work but I think the white ones are way cooler.

Let the decorator draw or scribble all over the egg with the crayon before dipping in the dye then when it's dipped the dye does not stick to the wax and leaves cool patterns on the eggs. 

Hope you and your family have a traditional Easter, either with new traditions or old!