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Easter Egg Fun

© Mary M. Alward

Do you like dying eggs? I sure do. It's lots of fun. I've been dying eggs at Easter ever since I can remember. There are lots of different ways to create different designs. All you need is a dozen (12)hard boiled eggs and lots of imagination.

When I was a child, we couldn't buy the fancy egg dying kits that are available today. The night before Easter, my mother would get out the glass custard dishes, fill them with warm water, add a couple of drops of apple cider vinegar and food coloring. The hard boiled eggs that she'd cooked earlier in the day would be taken out of the refrigerator and it was time to begin.

What we needed:

* hard boiled eggs

* crayons

* lots of imagination

What we did:

First we drew designs on the eggs with crayon. Sometimes we drew a cross with Easter lilies. Other times we drew birds and a tree. We drew pictures of things we were familiar with.

The first eggs we dyed would be yellow, blue, red and green. Those are the basic food dyes. Then, after those were done, we'd mix colors together to make different colors. Red and blue makes purple. Yellow and blue makes a different shade of green than that of the food coloring. Red and yellow make orange. So, you can see that we had a variety of colors.

When we had dyed our eggs, we laid them on an old tea towel that Mom didn't need anymore. (We didn't have paper towels. They were a luxury that we couldn't afford, so we made do.)

Sometimes we'd hold one end of the egg in the dye and color only half of it. When it dried thoroughly, we would dye the other end a different color. At times, we left a ring in the center of the egg white. Other times we'd let the colors overlap to make a unique color in the center.

When we were finished, the designs we made with the crayons showed up clearly. Do you know why? Because crayons are made of wax and the food coloring couldn't penetrate (go through) the wax.

We always had a lot of fun dying eggs and our creations were beautiful, at least in our eyes.

Easter egg dying tips:

* Cover your work area with lots of old newspapers. This makes cleaning up a simple task.

* If you plan to give your eggs more than one coat of dye, dry them well between coats.

The copyright of the article Easter Egg Fun in Cooking with Children is owned by Mary M. Alward. Permission to republish Easter Egg Fun in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.