With all the fun articles out there for different ways to dye Easter Eggs I thought it would be fun to pick three and invite some of my son’s friends over to try them out. Since I was just launching my business this experiment was done the week of Easter 2019 and stored until now. The experiment…a five year old and 2 three year olds, two moms (one who was 38 weeks pregnant), and a HOT MESS!! I think the kids had a good time but I’m not sure my friend and I had a blast sweeping rice off my floor, helping corral the kids at the table with their dyed hands in the air, and praying no one touched the white chairs. LOL!! Regardless, here is what you need to know about dying Easter Eggs using whip cream, rice, and paper towels to tie dye them.
Method One – Whip Cream
Supplies Needed
- hard boiled eggs
- whip cream
- food color
- pans or muffin tins
- paper towels
- spoons
We started with this method as the post I read, which you can read here, said these eggs take about 20 minutes to dry and I thought it would be the messiest of the three methods so I wanted to knock it out before the kids got crazy. When it was all said and done this method was fairly clean, although it took quite a few paper towels to get the whipped cream off the eggs. Full disclosure…I’m a skimmer when I read things, don’t do that with my blogs OK… haha, and I’m just noticing that bit about soaking the eggs in vinegar before starting so the dye didn’t adhere to our eggs quite the way we hoped. Take-a-ways from the whipped cream method…
- read the directions thoroughly
- use classic color dye (the neon pack I bought didn’t really look that great BUT that could also have to do with that whole directions thing)
- this was not nearly as messy as I thought it was going to be, the kids used the spoons and they didn’t get the dye or the whip cream all over the place
- if you are using tubs of whip topping just buy 1 tub per child (they are like $0.88 each) and then you don’t have to mess with cleaning pans
Would I use this method again…eh…yeah, but only because I’m just noticing the directions bit and because the kids had fun and didn’t destroy the place. I don’t think the eggs turned out very impressive but I’d be willing to give it another shot.
Method Two – Tie Dye
Supplies Needed
- hard boiled eggs
- rubber bands or mini hair ties
- food color
- paper towels
- spray bottle with a vinegar/water mixture
- disposable gloves
I think this kids enjoyed this method the best AND I think it yielded the best results. You can find the post I read to get the things in order for this method here, although I varied my approach slightly to have things prepped for kids and to avoid what I felt like would be a mess by wrapping paper towels with dye spots around eggs with small hands grabbing at things. Before everyone arrived I went ahead and wrapped the eggs in the paper towels and banded them up, when we gave the eggs to the kids they had a “handle” to hold while they POURED dye all over the paper towels, poured!!! OMG. The five year old did a better job controlling himself but two younger guys struggled with the small drops part of the directions we gave. Take-a-ways from this method…
- the kids seemed to enjoy this the most
- the pouring of the dye really wasn’t as bad at the end of the day as we thought from a final result aspect
- wrapping the eggs in advance was a real help from a time standpoint and from a mess standpoint
- I thought the colors would bleed between eggs when I sat them in the pan I got out to store them in to dry but I don’t think that happened
- the disposable gloves would have been nice to have but at the end of the day the dye that got all over everyone’s hands washed off by the next day
Would I use this method again…YES!! The eggs turned out unique and were easy to do even for the younger two boys. I would even buy a spare roll of a different brand paper towels to have more than one design.
Method Three – Rice
Supplies Needed
- hard boiled eggs
- rice
- food color
- plastic zipper bags
- disposable gloves
- a vacuum
What could possibly go wrong with this neat and easy way to dye eggs with your kids…hmmmmm. The post I got this idea came from, which you can find here, did a much better job keeping this neat and easy but we had a major malfunction!! My lovely angel son, bless his heart, somehow managed to shake the bag of red rice so hard it exploded and went EVERYWHERE!!
After the cleanup and the “don’t touch ANYTHING!!!” my friend and I dealt with here are some take-a-ways from this method.
- we let the boys squeeze the dye into the rice bags which meant there was too much dye in the baggies
- the rice baggie explosion was an accident but it was just so bad it ruined any chance this method had at being a hit
- don’t let your kid wear a white shirt to dye Easter eggs…I think I still owe my friend a school shirt, oops.
- the pattern on the eggs turned out nice and the vibrancy of the color was the best with this method
- these took the longest to “dry” and flicking the rice off was messy
- I say “dry” because the dye on these never seemed to really dry, even a couple of days later I got it on my hands when I peeled the eggs
Would I use this method again…nope, sorry. I think there are ways to improve the mess we made but there are also so many other ways to dye eggs that this one just doesn’t seem like it’s worth the time and work. Even if the bag hadn’t exploded all over my dining room the clumps of rice that stuck to the eggs and the fact that my hands were dyed again a few days later makes it eh.
All in all the boys had a good time and enjoyed themselves but after dying eggs using a good old Paas pack with my son and husband a few days after this experiment I realized…some things are just better the old fashioned way. Happy Easter everyone!
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