These tie dye Easter eggs were so easy to make! I have to admit, I was a little nervous about the idea of tie dying something. It sounds like it should be scary. Or complicated. Or at the very least, messy. But you know what? It wasn’t any of those things! As long as you wear rubber gloves… if you choose not wear rubber gloves and you get food colouring all over your hands, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I don’t have very many Easter posts on the blog. How crazy is that!? Last year I had to go back to work after maternity leave around this time. The year before that I had a newborn plus two kids under 5. And then three years ago I found out I was pregnant with our little guy, baby #3. (Ah, March 2013 when we only had two babies, and I still had time to work on the blog every night after the kids went to bed. Those were good times…) Now, when I look at the handful of posts I published the month after I found out I was pregnant, I have flashbacks of nausea. Like real ones, where I swear I’m going to gag.
Have you ever had that problem!? I had a different logo on the blog that I used during that brief period of time, and just looking at that logo STILL makes me feel sick to my stomach. Along with one of the songs from Tangled that my daughter listened to on repeat for months. You’re either going to be thinking,”Yes! I know exactly what you’re talking about!” Or you’re going to be part of the other team, “Um, Debbie, you’re crazy. Can you just move on??”. Okay, fine.
I’ve been a blogger for 4 and a half years and this is the first Easter egg post I’ve ever written. You can just ignore that as a craft blogger I’m shaking my head in disbelief that I could have let that happen. And instead, check out how awesome these tie dye Easter eggs turned out! I had no idea what to expect when I was making them, but they are bright, gorgeous and so much fun!
Check out our video on How to Make Tie Dye Easter Eggs:
If you love this “egg-cellent” Easter craft, you’ll love these too!
Tie Dye Easter Eggs
The full printable instructions are at the end of this post, but here’s what you’ll need:
- Hard Boiled Eggs
- Food Colouring
- Paper Towel
- Water Spray Bottle
- Tiny Elastics or Twist Ties
- Table Fan
Go ahead and hard boil your eggs. Did you know that you can make hard boil eggs by baking them in the oven!? I’ve been doing it for about 3 years now and I’ve never had a single egg crack!
Once the eggs have cooled off, rip apart the paper towels into small sections and place your egg in the middle.
Bunch up the paper towel around the egg so it’s completely covered. Twist the end as tightly as you can and secure it with a tiny elastic or a twist tie. I get my tiny elastics in the hair and accessories section at the dollar store.
Squeeze drops of food colouring directy onto the paper towel.
You’re probably going to want to hold the egg in your hand. I would have needed a third hand to take a photo of me doing that so this was the best I could do. You get the idea though.
Try to separate the food colouring drops so that there is some white space between them. You definitely don’t have to leave the space, but it helps to keep the colours from completely mixing into one another if you leave some room.
Take your spray bottle of water and squirt a small amount of water into the middle of each of the food colouring drops. If you can still see white paper towel, the egg underneath will be white in that area, so keep spraying until the paper towel is completely coloured. But keep in mind, the more water you spray, the less bright the colour on the egg will be. It’s a balance.
Gently squeeze the egg over the sink if there’s any extra water. Even if there isn’t, squeeze it gently anyway to make sure the colours on the paper towel transfer to the egg underneath.
This is why you want to wear rubber gloves. It’s just food colouring, so if you don’t have gloves, it will definitely come off your hands in a day or two, but this is what my gloves looked like after one egg:
Set the eggs in a glass dish or on a baking sheet to dry. I was impatient so I pointed a table fan directly at my eggs and they were completely dry in about 3Â hours. I definitely recommend you do the same, otherwise you’ll need to leave them overnight to dry.
This is going to sound cheesy, but it was like unwrapping a present.
What’s inside? Are you excited? Because I was getting pretty excited…
Ta-da! I love how the texture from the paper towel made an impression on the eggs!
There has to be something you can do with the beautiful tie dyed paper towels you’re left with at the end so you don’t just throw them away?? What if you cut out a square of each paper towel, pinch it together in the middle with a pipe cleaner or clothes pin and turn it into a super simple tie dyed butterfly when you’re done? I wish I had thought of that yesterday!
The colours were bright and beautiful, and even though I used the same technique on all of them, each egg looked completely different.
In case you’re wondering, yes, the food colouring does leach through the egg shell a little bit. But only a few dots here and there. It’s food colouring, so the eggs are still completely safe to eat.
Tie Dye Easter Eggs
Materials
- Hard Boiled Eggs
- Food colouring
- Paper Towel
- Water Spray Bottle
- Tiny Elastics or Twist Ties
- Table Fan
Instructions
- Tear apart the paper towels into small rectangles. Place a cool, dry egg in the middle of the paper towel.
- Wrap the paper towel up and around the egg so it's completely covered. Twist the top of the paper towel so it's tight against the egg and secure it with a tiny hair elastic or a twist tie.
- Wearing rubber gloves, gently squeeze drops of food colouring directly onto the paper towel wrapped egg (3 or 4 drops at a time), leaving some white space between each colour. Repeat until there are large food colouring dots around the whole egg.
- Using a spray bottle, gently spray a small amount of water into the center of each food colouring dot. Keep spraying until the colours bleed and there is no more white space. The less water you spray, the brighter the colours on the egg will be.
- Gently squeeze the wet paper towel wrapped egg over the sink to drain any excess water. Even if there's no extra water, gently squeeze the egg to make sure the colour on the paper towel transfers to the egg.
- Place the wet, paper towel wrapped eggs in a baking dish. Point a table fan at the eggs and allow them to dry for 3 to 4 hours. (Without a table fan, you'll have to wait overnight for them to dry).
- When the paper towels are completely dry, remove the elastics and unwrap each egg.
Notes
These tie dye Easter eggs are SO FUN and they’re so simple to make! The colours are bright and beautiful and since it’s just food colouring, the eggs are completely safe to eat! And if you wear rubber gloves and make them over top of a large baking sheet, it’s shockingly easy to clean up too! These are lots of fun!
Here are even MORE Easter inspired craft ideas!
Our book Low-Mess Crafts for Kids is loaded with 72 fun and simple craft ideas for kids! The projects are fun, easy and most importantly low-mess, so the clean up is simple!
Where to buy:
You can purchase Low-Mess Crafts for Kids from Amazon, or wherever books are sold:
Amazon |  Barnes and Noble |  Books- A- Million |  Indiebound |  Indigo |  Amazon Canada
Have you ever tried doing this with wooden eggs? I’m a teacher and couldn’t use real hens eggs…..
I tried a couple of these today and they turned out nice, I posted a picture of them on facebook along with a link to your website, hope that was ok 🙂
Mine are drying now! I want to try it with toilet paper also because I’m thinking the color will touch the egg easier because it’s thinner and won’t bunch up as much as the paper towel did. But I can’t wait to see how they come out yours look beautiful!!!
Tie Dye Eggs My Way
boiled eggs room temp
paper towels cut into 4 even pieces
food color
vinegar
plastic wrap
gloves
Dip one cut piece of paper towel into vinegar,wrap it around the egg. Place egg into the palm of your hand with a piece of plastic wrap on you hand. Now just drip different color drops of dye all around the egg. seal the plastic wrap around the egg set aside and continue the process until all eggs are wrapped. Now just wait an hour or two. Put on gloves unwrap eggs and place on paper towels until dried.
My daughter and I made these this year! They came out fabulous! I wish we did them all this way. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for creating this tutorial! It is our Easter Egg Decorating roundup! 🙂
Happy Easter!
Cathy Tibbles
https://cathonketo.com/keto-easter-go-together-like-eggs-and-bacon/
My family and I have always done traditional Russian Easter eggs dyed with onion skin, but it’s SUCH a hassle. My daughter and I did this last night and they came out perfectly!! We did tweak your instructions just a bit by using tissue instead of paper towels and I sprayed them with a vinegar/water mix instead of straight water. We did them around 5pm and I put them in cupcake tins and put them in the fridge overnight. The colors were SO vibrant and it really WAS like opening a little package! I wish I could post a picture!
We tried this today and we really enjoyed it. My boys were so excited we were doing tie dye lol Easter Sunday was a success and this project contributed to it! Instead of twist ties i used rubber bands that i had on hand and we cooked the eyes in the UV. Thank you for sharing!!!! Also i posted pics of our work on snapchat with the boys doing this project and shouted you out. lol They loved it!
These eggs are beautiful. I just wanted to add- the Minecraft theme music still makes me sick. I’m definitely going to try it with vinegar next time. I’m really curious to see if it makes a difference!!
The eggs are beautiful! I love tie dye! And to this day, if someone even says Mango gum, I throw up a little bit in my mouth, so I know exactly what you are talking about!