Easter Eggs

Our family makes a yearly event of dyeing eggs for Easter.  Last year, we invited a group of friends to share in our tradition with us, but this year we worked on our project alone.  We scaled back acadmics to the very basics one day last week and devoted our school day to "art" instead.  

We began with shaving cream eggs. Aside from a few messy fingers, it was an easy variation to traditional dyeing.   We filled a 11x8 baking pan with shaving cream and 8-10 drops of food coloring. Then we used a toothpick to swirl (but not blend) the colors. 

After rolling the eggs through the rainbow mix, we set the eggs on an old towel to dry before wiping off the shaving cream to see the results.  (I didn't get an individual "after" photo, but you can see a few of the tie-dye eggs in the vase below. 

After dyeing a few shaving cream eggs, we moved on to egg dyeing with a twist.  The dyeing part was the same as usual (boiling water, a splash of vinegar, food coloring), but we used an Easter egg color chart to achieve specific colors with names like lime, cantaloupe, maize, and raspberry. 

The other difference this year was that we inserted the eggs in a whisk before dipping into the hot water.  It saved us from worrying about burned fingers or splashes of water all over the table from dropping the eggs into the cups. 

We chose to displaying our array of eggs in a vase on the kitchen table.  After using food dyes and shaving cream on our eggs and then leaving them out at room temperature, they are no good for eating, but buying 18 eggs is far less expensive than many craft supplies.

We ended our day with one last egg decorating project: Minion eggs.  Recreating these little creatures from Despicable Me was super easy.  All we needed were a few cheap plastic Easter eggs, electrical tape, googly eyes, and a permanent marker.  The kids created their Minions in secret so that each one could be different.  Then they did a big reveal to each other when they were done.

Not up for boiling water, food dyes, or googly eyes? My kids have also had fun coloring these free Easter egg printables this year.


What about you?  Have you done an Easter crafting?