Decorating Your Easter Eggs

There are many ways to decorate your Easter eggs. Before starting the decorating process, you will need to decide on what you want to do with your egg. Depending on whether you want to eat your decorated eggs, or save them for reuse year after year, the process will be different.

• Hard-boiled Eggs - If you would like to make your Easter eggs part of your holiday meal, you'll need to hard-boil them first. If so, keep them refrigerated after decorating them. As long as you don't use acrylic paint, they should be safe to eat.

• Hollowed Eggs - If you want to keep your eggs long after Easter, you can hollow them out. Poke a small hole into each end of the egg. Put one end to your mouth and blow the contents out of the shell. Then, rinse the shell with water to clean it out. After it dries, it can be decorated and kept for years to come.

When you have your eggs ready, whether by hard-boiling them or hollowing them out, you can begin decorating them. The most common method involves making a solution of:

• 1/4 Teaspoon of food coloring
• 3/4 Cup of hot water
• 1 Tablespoon of white vinegar

Place the three items into a small bowl, using additional bowls for each color you want. Once the solutions are mixed, place the eggs into each bowl. The longer you let them sit, the more pronounced the color will be. When you want to take the eggs out, use a slotted spoon and put the eggs aside to dry. If desired, you can polish the dried eggs by applying a very small amount of vegetable oil to the eggs with a piece of cloth.

A fun technique for hollowed eggs is to create a quick Decoupage using tissue paper and white glue.  Create mosaics designs and geographic shapes by snipping or tearing small shards of color.  Dip a small paint brush in white glue pick up the pieces of paper with the glued tip and place on egg smoothing the glue to adhere.  Finish with a final top coat of glue and allow to dry.  This technique is not recommended for hard-boiled eggs that you plan to eat later.

And remember to follow proper Food Safety Techniques to protect your family from Food Borne Illness.


Deborah

Old Dominion Concierge

"We Run Your Errands"