How to Color Your Own Easter Eggs

Prepare Your Eggs For Coloring:

1. Boil your eggs.

2. Place your eggs on a cooling rack.

Color Your Eggs:

First you will want to cover your work area like your kitchen table with newspapers, large brown paper bags, wax paper or thick paper towels just in case you get some of the colored water on the table or surface it won't leave a permanent stain.

You will need some wide mouth cups, one for each different color you will be working with. Coffee mugs are ideal because most of us have them around the house. Although I prefer to use clear disposable drinking cups you can buy at the dollar store. I like these because it is easier to see the colored water.

Add 2 tablespoons of vinegar to each cup. Add your food coloring. Take this opportunity to play around with the different colors. Mix them together and make additional colors. Most boxes of food coloring have a chart on the back of the box that show you how to make additional colors other than the basic red, green, blue and yellow. Swirl the vinegar and food coloring together in the cup to mix it together. Then fill each cup about 3/4 full of water, remember you will be dipping eggs into the water so you don't want too much water or it will spill over the edge of the cups when you dip the egg in it.

You might also think about putting on disposable rubber gloves to help protect your hands from getting stained by food coloring. Don't worry if you don't have gloves, if you happen to splash a bit on your hands it usually comes off in about a day.

Dip your eggs into the colored water using a spoon. The longer you keep the eggs in the water the darker the color will be on the eggs. When your egg has reached the desired color, pull them out of the water using the spoon and set them on a wire rack to dry. You can leave your eggs out at room temperature for about 2 hours and then they will need to be refrigerated if you plan on eating them. The eggs will keep in the refrigerator for about a week.

Decorating Tips:

1. Put shaped stickers on the eggs before you dip them in the colored water. After the eggs have dried you can peal off the stickers and you can see the shapes on the eggs where left white. You can also dip the eggs in another color to fill in the white shapes with another color or just leave them white.

2. After eggs have been colored put double-sided stickers or tape on the eggs and then put colored craft foil on top of the sticker and pull off. This will leave the foil on the eggs in the shapes of your stickers or tape that you used.

3. If you don't plan on eating the eggs, you can decorate the eggs with glue and glitter, markers, ribbons and other craft items you have around the house.

Display Your Eggs:

1. Put them in a cute basket with some Easter grass.

2. Put them in a clear glass bowl or vase.

3. Get a toilet paper cardboard tube or paper towel tube and decorate it with construction paper, scrapbook paper or tissue paper. Fold the tube in half to make it flat and then cut about ½ inch strips. Open up the stripes and you will have small circles you can set your eggs on that will act as a stand.

What To Do With The Colored Eggs:

If you color a lot of eggs and don't want them to go to waste then you can refrigerate them and use them in some popular dishes.

1. Eat them plain with a little salt and pepper.

2. Potato salad

3. Garden salad

4. Deviled eggs

5. Pickled eggs

6. Cob Sandwich