Hey, Easter’s just upon us and it’s always been tradition for the bunnies and the eggs. And we all wonder why. Anyway, it’d really take a long hack at history and anthropology but the summary is that painted eggs hold a lot of symbolism that they have been around even before Easter and Christianity. It just somehow carried over as tradition.

Anyway, we’ve got all kinds of Easter eggs now. And another whole lot of ways to paint them. It’s always good family fun to go paint eggs so here are some methods and tips on how to paint them.

Preparing the dye

What you need:

• 1/2 cup water
• 30 to 40 drops of food coloring
• 1 tsp vinegar
• A slotted spoon
• NOTE: These can be done in proportion, just double or triple the recipe for larger batches.

What to do:

• Boil the water
• Drop in the food coloring
• Add the vinegar
• Mix them all together
• Let the dye mixture cool down

This dye will usually forms the base color for your egg.

Dyeing the egg

• To dye the egg, just simply dip the egg into the dye.
• Let it sit until it gets the color that you want.
• Spoon it out and pat dry.
• Let it sit for 30 minutes to dry.

Other decorations

For this, you can just let your imagination run wild. Here are a few suggestions though.

• Tie rubber bands around the egg before dipping to get a tie-dye effect.
• For striped eggs, you can wrap a strip of sticky tape around the egg before dyeing.
• For spotted ones, put in some drops of cooking oil in the dye.
• Laying the eggs on a table (covered with newspaper) and blowing on the paint (through a straw) before it dries can create a “spray painted” effect.
• Another fancy way is to coat the parts of the egg with wax before dipping. Using crayon would need some further baking at 200*F to melt the wax after the eggs have dried. Another tip is using candle wax. Just be careful whenever you deal with heat.