How to Color Easter Eggs Using Items Already in Your Home

Coloring, or dying, Easter eggs can be fun, easy activity that the whole family can participate in. The items you need to color eggs are minimal and there is no need to buy an egg coloring kit as you can choose to use natural dyes or food coloring. Additionally, you are not limited in how your egg looks. You can make solid colored eggs, spotted eggs or eggs with writing or other designs.

Regardless of what you use to dye the eggs, you will have to hard-boil the eggs.

If you want to use natural ingredients to make you dye, you can use things that can be found in almost any kitchen. You are not limited to what you can use, however here are some suggestions for common colors using items most households have in the pantry:

Pale Red: Fresh beets or cranberries, frozen raspberries

Orange: Yellow onion skins

Light yellow: Orange or lemon peels, carrot tops, celery seed or ground cumin

Yellow: Ground turmeric

Pale green: Spinach leaves

Green-gold: Yellow Delicious apple peels

Blue: Canned blueberries or red cabbage leaves

Beige to brown: Strong brewed coffee

If you are ready to dye your eggs and have picked out your ingredients for your colors of choice, here are the steps to take for perfect-looking Easter eggs.

Items need: Food coloring items, hot water, white vinegar, small bowls or cups, slotted spoon, cooking oil and a soft cloth

First, put eggs in a single layer in a pan and pour water in pan until the eggs are covered. Then, add about a teaspoon of vinegar. Next, add the natural dye appropriate to the color you want your eggs to be. Note that the more eggs you are dying at once, the more dye you will need to use. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Then, remove the substance you used to color the eggs and use slotted spoon to put eggs in a bowl. Use caution as they will be hot. If the eggs come out a lighter shade than you want, cover them with the dye and let them stand overnight in the refrigerator.

If doing this, measure 1/4 tsp. food coloring in bowl for each color. Add 3/4 cup hot water and 1 tbsp. white vinegar to each color. When you are done and the eggs have cooled, polish the eggs with small amount of cooking oil and soft cloth to give them a nice, vibrant shine.

Prefer to use food coloring to dye your eggs? Hard boil your eggs and then remove them to cool. Gather together enough cups for each color you want to create that are big enough to hold the liquid dye and a submerged egg. Mix 2 tsp. distilled vinegar and 2/3 cup of water and food coloring in each cup. Add food coloring one drop at a time until you obtain the desired color (generally around 24 drops of food coloring, depending on the size of your bowl). Food coloring is fairly easy to experiment with. You usually get red, blue, green and yellow in a pack of food coloring. Here is how to get some popular colors:

Turquoise - mix approximately 5 drops green with approximately 20 drops of blue.

Orange - mix approximately 10 drops of red with approximately 15 drops of yellow.

Violet - mix approximately 12 drops red with approximately 12 drops blue.

Once your eggs are completely cool, submerge them into the mixture for at least 15 minutes, longer if you want a darker color.

Want to spice up your eggs and give them a bit of design? Before dipping the eggs in the dye, use a wax crayon and draw on the egg. Where ever you write on the egg, the egg will remain white. Another idea for adding designs to your eggs employ rubber bands. Take as many rubber bands as you like and put them on the egg. When you put he egg in the dye, the places where the rubber bands are will remain white. You can also use masking tape instead of rubber bands. Spotted eggs are also a fun design to make. To make spotted eggs, take approximately 2 tsp. of cooking oil and put it in your dye. When you dip in your egg as usual, it makes the dye not stick to the places where the oil is. This will make random spots on the egg, and you will most likely not end up with two eggs the same.