How To Dye Easter Eggs

This is one of our most popular posts and videos ever. So we thought we’d share it again for Easter!

How To Dye Easter Eggs

Learn to dye Easter eggs the old fashioned way using vinegar and food coloring. We love to dye Easter eggs! We used the Paas kit as kids, but now we use vinegar and food coloring. We like being able to mix our own colors! This is a great technique to use with crayon resist, too. Which is one of our favorite ways to decorate Easter eggs! Wanna try it?  We’ll show you how!

Here’s a video we made showing all the steps to make the Easter egg dyes, dye the eggs, and decorate the eggs using crayon resist. Follow along with us on the video, then use the steps below to dye and decorate your own Easter eggs.

How To Dye Easter Eggs (& Decorate Them Too!)

Materials

Hard-boiled eggs (see our recipe below)
Food coloring: yellow, red, blue, and green
White vinegar
Crayons
Vaseline (or any petroleum jelly)

Tools

Cups to mix the dye in
Egg dipper or bacon tongs
Measuring cup
Measuring spoons
Popsicle or craft sticks
Timer
Bottle caps
Paper towels

Steps

1. To make the dye, pour ½ cup of room-temperature water and 3 tablespoons of white vinegar into a cup. Add to that 20 drops of food coloring. Stir with a Popsicle stick. Repeat to make yellow, red, blue, and green dyes.

Recipe For Easter Egg Dye

½ Cup water
3 Tablespoons vinegar
20 Drops of food coloring

2. To mix your own colors, like orange, follow the recipe, but use 10 drops of red food coloring and 10 drops of yellow food coloring. Stir with a craft stick.

3. To dye the eggs, place a cooled, hard-boiled egg into one of the dyes using your tongs. Leave the egg in the dye for 1-2 minutes to get a light color or 3 minutes to get a more vibrant color. (Leaving the egg in longer pickles the shell and doesn’t look good.) Turn the egg with the craft stick so the egg dyes evenly.

Remove the egg with the tongs and place it on a bottle cap. The bottle cap will hold the egg upright while it dies and it won’t leave any marks on your egg! Let the egg dry.

4. To decorate the eggs using crayon resist, draw all over a white, yellow, or other light-colored egg with a crayon, making swirls, dots, stripes, or zigzags.

Place the egg in a different color dye. Leave the egg in the dye for 2 minutes, then remove from the dye and place on a bottle cap to dry.

5. To polish the eggs, rub petroleum jelly (Vaseline) all over the shell. Gently buff the egg with a paper towel until the crayon wipes away and your design shows through. Use this same technique to polish solid-colored eggs.

Egg-cellent Colors

Vinegar in the dye will give you bright colors. For less vivid colors use lemon juice instead of vinegar. Or for very light pastels, try adding the food coloring to just plain water.

How To Hard Boil Eggs

1. Place eggs in a saucepan or pot. Cover the eggs with water and heat until the water boils.
2. Turn off the heat, cover the pan with a lid, and let sit for 15 minutes.
3. Cool the eggs by running them under cold water. Dry the eggs. (Store in the refrigerator for up to one week.)

Is this how you dyed Easter eggs when you were growing up? We’d love to hear from you! Leave us a comment!
Cheers,
Jennifer & Kitty

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