What, Me Crafty?

Last week, Rowan's teacher sent home a request for hard-boiled eggs. They were to be sent with him today as the class wanted to dye Easter Eggs. He was very excited about this, and naturally Willow wanted in on the excitement. To her dismay, we once again reminded her that she doesn't go to school yet. Sadness ensued.... Then I had a brilliant idea: why don't I boil extra eggs and then she and I can dye some ourselves? We could do a CRAFT! (Here's the thing. Many people consider me very crafty. I am not one of them. I make things, yes, but I've never thought of myself as crafty. There's a distinction there, it's in my head, but don't ask me to explain it coherently. Anyway, I haven't dyed or decorated eggs since elementary school, so this is kind of a big deal.)

I think I did okay, too.

I love to eat hard-boiled eggs, so decorating them always seemed an unnecessary step between the egg and my stomach. Then last year, while on a playdate, the kids got to decorate eggs and they wouldn't let me eat them. Naturally, the rules are different this year. If I'm going to be crafty, I'm going to get a snack out of it. So there.

Pretty blue!

I made up a dye bath, a very basic food colouring one: 1 cup boiling water, 1tbsp vinegar, 20+ drops food colouring. I'm very excited to know this recipe. (Apparently if you mix 1tbsp of olive oil in with the bath you can do tie-dye eggs. I haven't tried this, but now I really want to.) 

It looks like a Doctor Who prop...

My plan was for us to just plain-old dye the eggs, maybe try a two-tone dip-dye, but Willow had another idea.
Last October, the ever-wonderful Mista at AppleBox Boutique sent the kids two sample pots of Chalk Paint to paint pumpkins. I'm sad to say that that didn't happen, because I was way too busy. How busy? Let's say I lost 10 lbs. that month simply due to not having time to eat. It was a tough month. However, Willow never forgot about the "special paint" Mista had sent her, so when I started getting things set up to dye the eggs, she immediately went to the shelf and got the paint pots and her paintbrushes down. She was going to paint her egg, no arguments allowed.

Hair! 

It worked beautifully! She put the paint on pretty heavy, so we let it dry for a while and then wiped the excess off, coincidentally leaving behind a neat texture (Willow laughed and laughed, "It's an egg with hair!!!").

And now for the pink

Lots and lots of pink...

I still wanted to try the dye bath, so my egg became blue. I quite like the colour, but totally plain isn't really my style, so I added some designs with the Chalk Paint. I'm super happy with it. I would have continued the designs over the whole egg, but the bottom cracked when I was putting it (read: dropping it by accident) into the dye bath. I have faith that the food colouring will be safe to eat, but I'd rather not chance eating straight paint... Next time!

Pink and blue!

There will definitely be a next time. The kids and I are going on a road trip this weekend and hard-boiled eggs are a favourite road snack of mine. This trip, they will be Fancy!