April 26, 2011

Easter eggs

I realize Easter is over, but maybe this is something you can file away for next year.

This year we tried something new when dyeing our Easter eggs. Here's some of the best eggs. . .



My initial plan was to use all-natural dyes. A few days before Easter, my son and I boiled freezer-burnt cranberries and orange peels to make red and orange/yellow dye. I bought grape juice for purple dye. We saved our old coffee for brown dye. Our results were less than stunning since I didn't realize until egg-dyeing time that the eggs should soak in the dye overnight. So we resorted to the 99 cent Paas dyeing kit. We made our own "stickers" using small craft punches, decorative scissors, blue painter's tape and wax paper.





You can get really small punches from Michael's for $1 and those seemed to work the best. (I'm definitely going to buy some more for next year.) If you don't have punches or decorative scissors, you can use regular scissors to cut your own shapes (like my red/orange "confetti" egg in the first picture). If you don't have painter's tape, you can punch the shapes out of regular paper to make a stencil. Just color over the stencil with a white crayon before dyeing (like my husband's paw print blue egg). To make your "stickers" just put some pieces of painter's tape on a piece of waxed paper and cut your shapes (using punches) and strips (using decorative scissors). Peeling the shapes off the wax paper was a little problematic on some of the pieces. Here's a batch of eggs all stickered-up and waiting to be dyed.






Cheap family Easter fun!



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