I was wondering..as egg coloring is coming up...can paste colors, those used in coloring icings, be used to color boiled eggs? I know you can use the liquid ones with vinegar and hot water, but I have never used the paste colors and that is all I have. Thanks is advance for any help I can get!!

-- Cindy in Ok (cynthiacluck@yahoo.com), April 12, 2001

Answers

Sure you can, and their colors are so much prettier! Don't forget to let the kids draw with crayons on their own eggs first, the coloring won't pentrate it and they can find their own special eggs. We also would put 1$ or ? on a few eggs for the kids to win cash or prizes. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), April 12, 2001.

We used those and some suggestions we found in Countryside Magazine issues from last year to color eggs. The colors are so much more pretty than store bought.

Lynn G.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), April 12, 2001.

I have used natural egg colorants, like beets, onions etc..those were real pretty,but the kids like to paint on the eggs and decorate them up. When I did the egg coloring en masse, they missed out on the fun I guess. We are having family over Saturday, so we are getting busy tonight to get ready. :-) what fun!! Thanks alot!

-- Cindy in Ok (cynthiacluck@yahoo.com), April 12, 2001.

I haven't used the paste colors on eggs, but other folks have already said you can. I would also think that you could use water color brushes and paint designs on the eggs with the paste colors, like rosemalling, or anything that takes your imagination.

I have also dyed eggs by wrapping them in wet, slightly crumpled paper towels and dropping liquid food coloring on them randomly. Let it sit on a while before peeling the paper off and discarding it (rubber gloves stop you from getting dyed as well). Dry the eggs on cake racks. They turn out looking tie-dyed.

Another really fun dye is onion skins. I've saved up dried yellow and red onion skins for easter dying in past. What you do is you wrap the egg (raw) around with onion skins. Then you wrap that up in an old cotton rag and tie it at both ends with bread wrapper twist- ties. I usually use long ones and make a whole line of them in the rag like a sausage casing. You boil them as you would for hard boiled eggs, covered in water to which you add a cup of white vinegar. When the eggs are boiled, removed them from the pan and let them sit to cool on a cake rack. Remove all wrappings and let them dry. They turn out with muted colors that look like marble, or some kind of exotic stone. Maybe not what little kids expect these days, but really neat just the same.

Both the food color tie-dyes and the onion skin ones look better if you rub them lightly with vegetable oil when they are cool and dry. It stops the colors from transfering off the egg and deepens the color and increases shine. Very pretty, and very non-toxic!

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), April 12, 2001.

:-) what neat ideas!

-- Cindy in Ok (cynthiacluck@yahoo.com), April 12, 2001.

We also used to make 'plaid' eggs. You need to think out your color patterns before you start and about things like if you dye half the egg yellow (holding it on one of those little egg dippers steadily -- that's the hard part, not shaking!) and the other half blue, that when you turn it on it's side and dye one-third of that side red, and the farther one-third green, you will get quite a colorful pattern.

You have to let the egg dry off between dips in various dyes, and you can also get fancy and hold the egg half under in the yellow until it is dyed a pale-ish yellow, then raise it part way out and let the lower end dye to a darker yellow, same for each color as you progress and it does look very much like a plaid easter egg.

As far as I know, my mom thought this up when we were kids. We got pretty good at it.

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), April 13, 2001.

Oh, I have made those!! They are pretty! I forgot all about making those kind!!

-- Cindy in Ok (cynthiacluck@yahoo.com), April 13, 2001.