Eggs, Eggs, More Eggs

On Thursday we had a few friends over to decorate eggs. Friend Caitilin had sent me a link to dyeing eggs with silk ties, so we tried those. You need silk ties, thread and unboiled eggs. Cut a piece of tie to cover egg. Wrap as tightly as possible with thread. Dye will not transfer unless the fabric is touching the shell, so the more wrapping the better. Tie the end of your thread however you can so it does not unravel, and boil for 15 minutes. We started with boiling water and "spooned" the wrapped eggs into the water. Remove, let cool and unwrap. Interesting results.

We also had set up for traditional water bath egg dyeing. While setting up for the egg day, I noticed some painter's tape (the blue, low-tack kind from the hardware section) and thought maybe we could mask eggs with it and then dye them. I thought it should be rubbed down very tightly, but we got our favorite results with the eggs that had some dye seep under the edges a bit. T B-H (11) made this adorable bunny (below)by tearing and adhering the tape onto an egg and hand dipping each end. The other psychedelic egg had tape around the middle, and was again hand dipped on each end. We had great results with these.

Miss Ivy and Gustopher were here for a bit, since it was M's regular day to babysit them for the afternoon. (above) And finally, I still have TONS of chalkboard paint left, so we stirred it up and painted some blown eggs and some inexpensive paper mache and wooden eggs. Friend Ana saw an idea for toothpick flower painting on eggs with acrylic craft paint, and so we had a table full of people trying that technique on the blackboard eggs. Friend Caitilin spent the afternoon gilding a short dozen of blown eggs with acrylic paint. She used white, gold and bronze metallics over individual colors.

A roundup of examples from a highly successful egg day. The large black egg is a papier mache egg that I painted with chalkboard paint and added white acrylic outlines on. The egg was then colored in with chalk. Wipe and re-color as desired. Fun for the kids table.