Every year on Good Friday I listen to Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell while dying my Easter Eggs. Every year I “perfect” my egg dying technique. Its quite fun, and something I always look forward to in a busy Holy Week.
For my hard boiled eggs I only use household products and Paas Easter Egg dye, no fancy paints, no expensive dyes. Just Paas, actually 2 packets of paas.
Two packages of dye, per one package’s instructed amounts of water and vinegar In other words twice the amount of dye per cup of water. The past few years I’ve been more liberal with the vinegar (then what is labeled on the box) which helps the little dye pellets to dissolve better, and I think helps make the colors brighter. I fill up 6 tea cups with the water and vinegar mixture (as listed on package), pair up the dye pellets by color and plop them into the cups. Nothing fancy or hard! Let the eggs sit in the dye for as long as it takes to get your desired shade.
*Plaid Eggs and other designs: I use Q-tips as paint brushes! Whatever is painted on the egg needs to be traced several times to get color that isn’t so pale. With plaid eggs, I create stripes of one color horizontally, and then again vertically. Pick another color and do the same, perhaps in thicker or thinner lines, keeping the horizontal pattern the same as the vertical one. The dyes layer quite nicely for the plaid effect. I’ve also used Q-tips to create swirls and polka dots.
*Tie Dyed/Swirls : Experiment with different kinds of paper towels, napkins and facial tissues. Crumple up one of the above paper products, and then wrap an egg in it. Using a spoon pour different colors on different parts of the wrapped egg and let the it sit. That’s it! Different types of towels have different textures on them which can give different effects. The longer you keep the egg wrapped in the saturated towel, the darker the colors will be. Sometimes I will also dye an egg a lighter shade, and then “tie dye” it with a towel, its also a good way to cover up bland eggs and failed coloring experiments.
*Mixed colors: The real grass green (second row, second egg) color is from setting the egg in yellow the most amount of time, then green for a shorter length, and then just a few dips in orange. Red-Orange (second row, first egg,) is equal amounts of times in both red and orange (go figure!), though I may have dipped it in yellow a few times. Indigo Blue (first row, fifth egg) is from very long and equal exposures to blue and purple.
*Speckles: Sort of a failed plan, I sprinkled salt on a wet egg, and let it dry. However if the egg hadn’t sat long in dye, or if I didn’t let the salt sit on the egg long enough it would only leave very minimal specks, that don’t show up in the photo.The only one that really worked is this Red-Orange egg.
Do you have any secret dying tips to share? What’s been successful for you?
Musicdoodle 