A first experience dying Easter eggs

About a week before Easter, we had a couple of “narrow escapes” on behalf of the fact that Ash felt the need to “check” the eggs in the fridge, “To see if they were ready to be dyed for Easter yet.”  Obviously, he was going to have his first experience dying Easter Eggs this year, and that was that.  Naturally, this became a complicated thing for me, as much because I’m me, as because he’s him.  I didn’t have time to seek out a non-perishable alternative that could be decorated in the same way (yes, I know there are many ways to decorate eggs, but he wanted to try DYING them), the smell of hard-boiled eggs has always been an immediate and severe gag trigger for me, and I also really, really, reaaaaalllllllllly was hoping to be able to keep Ash’s first-ever Easter Eggs, too.  So, I taught myself how to blow-out eggs, and practiced until I was confident that I could do it without breaking them.  (In the end, with the help of a thumbtack to make the holes and a nasal bulb for the blowing, I could have an egg sitting on our drying rack in about 2 minutes.)  Since Ash would want to share the activity with us, Steffan and I could dye the eggs that had already been blown out — since we are more capable of handling them without breaking them — and Ash would dye the at-least-significantly-less-fragile raw eggs, and I’d blow them out afterwards.  It’s not as if we wouldn’t be right there on hand to help anyway, so that would be good enough when it came to any potential mishaps with the raw eggs.

The evening before Easter, Ash got his chance…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following are the eggs that Ash made this year — with a little motor help, but no artistic guidance — his first-ever dyed Easter Eggs.  Are they not GORGEOUS?!  I am so glad I planned things so that they could become keepsakes.  At this point I just have to find my spray-shellac, give them a few coats, and then use bead caps over the ends to protect the holes from being snagged and chipping further.  They did lose some of their vibrancy because of having to be blown-out AFTER being dyed, unfortunately.  It wasn’t being cleaned/rinsed that did it, it was stray egg that got on the shell while being blown.  You know how being “egged” is horrible for cars, houses, etc?  Well, that’s because egg is pretty darn good at stripping surface coloring.    I’d forgotten about that.  Next year, perhaps I’ll experiment with shellacking the dried, dyed eggs BEFORE blowing them out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The morning after Easter, Ash told me that he’d dreamed about dying eggs.  I guess this tradition is a keeper.