DIY Dyed Easter Eggs

No set of Easter decorations is complete without some pretty eggs. And while you can buy all sorts of plastic versions, I decided this year to try my hand at dying my own. I used regular food colouring to achieve some pretty pastel colours and finishes and it was really easy!

First you have to decide whether to blow out your eggs or just use hard boiled. I tried blowing them out but I'm really bad at it and broke three before I gave up. This close to Easter it's no problem to dye hard boiled eggs - the only drawback is you won't be able to keep them for next year. To make the dye just add a teaspoon of vinegar and 10 drops of food colouring to a cup of warm water. For more vibrant colours you can use more vinegar but I wanted mine to be softer. You can vary the shades by leaving them in the water for less or more time or by double dipping in different colours. I did these eggs using four bowls of dye - red, blue, green and purple (which was red and blue food colouring combined).

To make spotty eggs dip an egg once and let it sit for 3-4 minutes in the dye. Remove it and let it dry. Once it's dry, scribble all over it with a crayon - it doesn't matter what colour because you'll be wiping it off - and put it back in the original dye for another minute or so. Remove and use a paper towel to wipe away your crayon marks and smudge the second coat of dye. Each one will look different.

To make a spotty egg just add some cooking oil to your dye. You can dip a plain egg in oil and dye or you can colour in plain dye, let dry, and then dip in a different colour with oil. This one was done with green dye first and then purple dye with oil. This effect looks a lot better in person than it does in my pictures!

You can draw pictures or write messages on an egg with a crayon and then dip it in dye. Again, it doesn't matter colour the crayon is because you'll be wiping it off once it comes out of the dye.

To display my eggs I decided to keep it really simple by cutting the top off of a regular egg carton. I added some bits of raffia, ribbon, chipboard letters and some paper embellishments.

I had so much fun making these eggs and they look really pretty as the centrepiece on our kitchen table. I'm going to have a hard time throwing them out next week!

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