I don’t know about your kids (or you!), but my kids want to dye Easter eggs every day. Seriously, everyone is required to eat at least two hard-boiled decorated eggs for lunch every day, and we’re still not getting through them as fast as they’re getting made.
It’s my opinion, however, that repetition encourages creativity, in that everyone has long since grown tired of simple vinegar + food coloring preparations, and we’ve launched into the wide world of more unusual egg decorating projects. We’ve dyed eggs with silk scarves, blown them out, decorated them with stickers and Sharpies, and added wax to the mix.
Tie-dyeing eggs is another simple decorating activity, since the only materials that it requires over and above the dye are some rubber bands and some stash fabric just about ready for the compost heap (Yay, stash-busting!).
I’m really fond of the unusual color application that tie-dyeing your eggs results in, however. Yes, they really do look tie-dyed when you’re done. And here’s how to do it:
For each egg you want to tie-dye, you’ll need a piece of trashed-out stash fabric large enough to roll the egg up in and tie it off at each end.
Any medium-or light-weight natural fabric will suffice for your purposes. I’m using an old flannel bedsheet that I’ve already cut just about every usable part off of–it’s otherwise destined to be shredded with scissors and sent to live in the compost heap.
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Is that first picture of eggs that you dyed using this technique? Because they don’t look like the ones on the last page and don’t understand how you got all those gorgeous colors.
it looks to me that to get the eggs to look like in the first image you need to put stuff inside the wrapped fabric, not just soak it… Very misleading article, I really hoped that the instruction is for eggs on the front page, thanks for wasting my time :/
Wait a minute. Those are not the “Hubble” eggs I thought I was learning how to make.
I agree, how did you get the mottled/spotted effects on the eggs on page 1 of the article? I’m guessing the ones in the last page were only dipped in one color and not multiple, thus not getting the tie-dyed effect that we were reading along for…?
Calm down, people–Easter is a happy holiday! Not only are the eggs in the picture the ones that were made during the course of the tutorial, but they were also made by a six-year-old and a four-year-old. I’m not sure what you’re confused about, but this is how to make those eggs, my friends.
Oh, I get it now, perhaps–is it the fact that in the last pic, there are some other Easter eggs mixed in with the cloth-covered ones? That photo just shows the last step in the tutorial, which is to leave the eggs tied up for 24 hours. You can then feel free to use the dye to color your other eggs more traditionally, if you wish.
hmmm, could i use a little spray of wax on the eye to give me some resistance…. a liquid dropper to apply my colors and then leave them to transfer!? i like this idea of tye dying! could be awesome! will try!
I could definitely see wax working well. The liquid dropper, though, might need some experimentation to get the effect that you want–the fabric needs to be completely saturated for the dye to bleed through. It would definitely work if you dyed the fabric before tying it onto the egg, but I think you’d get better control over what colors go where if you saturate the fabric after it’s tied on.
Im sorry, but I am still confused. in the last picture above the eggs look one solid color, as mentioned above the ones at the beginning of your post are multi-colored, with splotches etc. It seems as though there is another step?? The ones in the beginning look celestial and speckled.
Any clarity would be great,
thanks!
The last image shows the last step in the tutorial, that of keeping the fabric wrapped around the egg. My kids were also dyeing Easter eggs the more traditional way, and using the same work area to do so. Every image in which you see traditional-looking dyed eggs along with the tie-dyed eggs is just that–traditionally-dyed eggs and tie-dyed eggs.