Let’s face it: the prospect of creating the same old Easter eggs when this spring rolls around just isn’t quite making you quite as excited as it used to. What’s more, your kids aren’t really that excited about creating the same old monochromatic Easter eggs that they have year after year after year, either. So why not try something different and new this year? Here is a fun and funky twist on the traditional Easter egg dyeing tradition that brings some hippie spirit into your holiday celebrations. So find some rubber bands and gear up for some tie-dyed Easter eggs.
Instructions for tie-dyed Easter eggs
Materials needed:
1. Hard boiled eggs
2. Easter egg dye (either store bought or home made)
3. Rubber bands of varying widths
Steps for creating tie dyed eggs
1. Take the hard boiled eggs and dip them in a lighter color of Easter egg dye.
2. Then wrap rubber bands around the Easter egg. Use different widths and place the rubber bands in different places.
3. Dip the Easter egg in another color of dye.
4. Let the egg dry. Then, you can take off the rubber bands and put new rubber bands on the egg in different places.
5. Dip the egg in another color.
6. Keep changing the rubber bands and dipping the egg in different colors until you have the exact egg that you want! Remember, that you can also go extra simple by starting out with rubber bands around the egg, and then just dye it one color, so that you have a one-colored egg with white bands around it.
In case you don’t want to spend a lot of money on dye that you can make at home, here are instructions for making your own Easter egg dye:
1. Put some water in various small containers, such as small cups or clean and empty butter or margarine containers.
2. Add one teaspon distilled white vinegar to each cup of water (1 tsp white vinegar to 1 cup of water).
3. Add food coloring to the water and vinegar mixture. The general rule of thumb is to add two drops of food coloring at a time, and then to stir and to wait and see if the color and the intensity is what you want. Also, look at the back of the food coloring package for combination ratios so that you can form different colors than the ones that are in the food coloring package. Usually, food coloring only comes with primary colors, but it will give you instructions on how to form secondary colors (green, orange, etc.).
How to hard boil Easter eggs
If you need a refresher course on how to hard boil Easter eggs perfectly, here’s a brief overview.
1. Put eggs in a large pot. You should keep the eggs in one layer. If you have more eggs than will fit in the pot, then it is best to do it in batches, though you can do more than one pot of eggs at a time.
2. Fill the pot with enough water to cover the eggs with one inch of water.
3. Put the pot on the stove and bring the water to a strong boil.
4. Boil the eggs and the water for 12 minutes.
5. Take the pot off of the stove. Then remove the eggs from the water with a slotted spoon (or another implement, but the slotted spoon tends to work best).
6. Immediately put the eggs into a bowl that is full of cold ice water so that you can stop the cooking process right away.
