Seven Last Minute Techniques for Awesome Easter Eggs
I sincerely expected this to be Pinterest’s flop. There are so many great Easter egg techniques – and so many Pinterest tricks that fall flat – that I was shocked that these seven actually worked. (The same cannot be said for these natural dyes, though.) Six were reliable and one, the marbling of the nails, gave mixed results, but when it worked it was amazingly good.
These are also not fussy procedures. They are all quick and easy to do, and chances are you have most of the ingredients on hand. See below for details, but you can do a lot with just food coloring (the one that comes in small dropper bottles) and pantry staples. We also recommend a pair of gloves so you don’t have rainbow fingers all weekend.
Paper Towel Dye Eggs
What you need : Food coloring and paper towels.
All you need to do is wrap the egg in a paper towel, drip food coloring on it, and then dampen the paper towel to mix the colors. I found instructions that said to use a spray bottle filled with water, but since I didn’t have one, I just wet a second paper towel and blotted the water with it. It turned out beautifully.
It’s all! It will look like this:
Unroll the egg gently to avoid smudging the pattern, and let it dry.
Watercolor eggs
What you need : food coloring, vinegar, a glass of water, and a spoon.
First, rub the eggs with a mixture of half vinegar and half water. Then, hold the egg over a bowl and add a drop of food coloring. Pour some water over it to thin the dye and spread it over the egg. Make sure to turn the egg over so that all the colors are colored.
Repeat this with more flowers and water until you get the desired result.
You can leave some areas white, as I did, or be sure to wet each part of the egg with water to get a smooth, blended look.
Speckled eggs
What you need : food coloring, rice, and a bag or small container for each color.
Place about a quarter cup of rice in a bag and add food coloring. For the eggs shown here, I used 6 drops of blue and 6 drops of purple. Then just add the egg and shake!
First I took a darker egg, and then when I made the second egg in the same bag of rice, it turned out to be a softer color. Experiment with different amounts of dye and see what you like.
Eggs with marble oil
What you need : food coloring, a glass of water, and vegetable oil.
Pour about an inch of water into a cup, add 6-8 drops of food coloring, and then add a tablespoon of vegetable oil. Place the egg in the dye and stir it a little with a spoon; then let the egg sit for about 10 minutes.
The oil prevents food coloring from entering the egg, leaving it uncolored in some places. To be unusual, start with speckled eggs (from the recipe above) instead of simple ones.
Tay-kras eggs with whipped cream
What you need : Food coloring and whipped cream (or shaving cream).
Simply pour food coloring into a bowl or tray of whipped cream and use a spoon or chopstick to whisk. Dip the eggs in the colored whipped cream and let them dry while they are still covered in it. (You can see them dry in the picture below.) After a few minutes – 10 should be enough – just rub off the cream and the vibrant colors will remain.
They are sometimes called shaving cream eggs, but if you’re standing in the kitchen looking at something creamy whipped to soft peaks, you’ll want to taste it. This is doubly true if you have children. So just use the whipped cream – I bought a can of Cool Whip and it worked great.
Marble eggs for nails
What you need : Different colors of nail polish and water in a disposable cup.
Start with a cup of water and then apply a few colors of nail polish to the surface and stir. You will have to work quickly as the varnish can form a skin when it starts to dry. Dip the egg in the water and the nail polish will stick.
This method turned out to be the most unpredictable. I found that some colors lay on the surface of the water as expected, while others just melted and disappeared. They presumably perform best if you use room temperature water; the exact composition of the varnish probably matters too. I don’t quite understand why the marble sometimes failed, but I kept trying. I have two or three dips and half a dozen gorgeous eggs:
You will notice from the video that these eggs have a pattern on only one side. If you sculpt the marble on a larger shallow pallet, you may be able to roll the egg on the surface of the water and paint everything around.
Silk Tie Pattern Eggs
What you need : Silk ties, fabric scraps, and elastic bands or string.
Stop by a thrift store and look for ugly out-of-fashion silk ties with bold patterns. (These are more common than you might think; check both ends of the tie for the 100% silk label.) It turns out that ugly ties make pretty eggs .
Open the seams of the tie and straighten the fabric. Cut out a few large squares and wrap them around the eggs so that the healthy side of the tissue is next to the egg. Secure the resulting bundle with an elastic band.
I followed the instructions and wrapped the entire knot with a piece of plain cloth, although I’m not sure if that really matters. Boil wrapped eggs for 20 minutes and add 1/4 cup vinegar. Take them out of the water and let dry.
If you wrap the fabric tightly enough, the eggs will exactly follow the pattern on the fabric. I didn’t do it well enough, but they still look amazing, right? Red and blue seem to convey the best, according to the examples I’ve seen; greens are more tender.