DIY Tie Dye Easter Eggs

It took some time before I realized that my new front door does not have a peep hole. What is up with that? I actually didn’t even notice I had no peep hole until I opened the door for a salesman. Now, typically, I don’t open the door for salesmen but now with social distancing, now, I’m especially not keen to open the door for just anyone. But I was expecting a no contact grocery delivery and so it startled the living daylights out of me when some dude was standing there with a clipboard in hand.

Turns out this dude wanted me to have new windows installed and he just. wouldn’t. stop. talking. And I was getting a bit desperate so I finally interrupted him with a fib. “Would you like the name of my landlord?” I could tell he didn’t believe me and so he decided to turn on the charm… “wow, your house smells amazing!” This time I could tell he was fibbing because my house straight up STANK like boiled eggs. I had 2 dozen eggs in the air fryer at the time and I had already “boiled” 4 dozen just before.

I was getting frustrated so showed him the tie dyed Easter egg in my hand…

and said “I’m dyeing a ton Easter eggs and this house straight up smells like farts right now.” It did, guys, it totally reeked. And he just said “cool egg! I’ll see you later!” Haha.

But you know what, it was a cool egg in my hand. When the doorbell rang I had just unwrapped my first tie dyed Easter egg and I was straight up in LOVE. And so today I’m sharing this door to door window salesman approved Easter egg dyeing technique… the tie dye Easter egg! Ooh, and did I mention they’re edible?

Supplies Needed for Tie Dye Easter eggs:

• Boiled Eggs (try this Air Fryer Boiled Eggs Recipe)
• Food Coloring (Assorted Colors / Neon Colors)
• White Vinegar
• Empty Squirt Bottles OR Eye Dropper and Small Bowls
• Paper Towels OR Squares of Fabric from an Old Tee Shirt
• Rubber Bands
• Sandwich Bags (the open folding bags are cheap and work just fine)
• Protection for Work Surface and Gloves
• Vegetable Oil

For this project I used paper towels, which, are in pretty high demand these days. After I initially colored these eggs I decided to try another with a piece of jersey fabric I cut from an old tee shirt. I’m pleased to report that it worked really well. This is a great substitute if you cannot find, or simply do not want to use paper towels.

I absolutely LOVE these little squirt bottles and I’ve used them for a lot of crafts recently. If you don’t have these an eye dropper will work perfectly fine.

When choosing your colors of food coloring for this project keep in mind the shades that play well together. For example, yellow and blue make green but green and red make brown. Because I love the traditional tie dye colors I used the pink (magenta) and teal from the McCormick Neon Food Colors Set and the yellow from the McCormick Traditional Assorted Colors Food Color Set.

How to Make Tie Dye Easter Eggs

Are you ready to dye up these eggs, or what? Let’s get after it!

Make Your Easter Egg Dye from Food Coloring

For tie dyed eggs a super concentrated dye works best. Here is our egg dye recipe for squeeze bottles:

• Teal: 1 ounce of white vinegar and 15 drops of food color.
• Magenta: 1 ounce of white vinegar and 15 drops of food color.
• Yellow: 1 ounce of white vinegar and 30 drops of food color.

And if using an eye dropper and small bowl:

• Teal: 1 tablespoon of white vinegar and 8 drops of food color.
• Magenta: 1 tablespoon of white vinegar and 8 drops of food color.
• Yellow: 1 tablespoon of white vinegar and 15 drops of food color.

When making your egg dye you basically want a strong concentration of color because you’re not going to use all that much dye.

For really concentrated egg dye, you’ll use less drops of food coloring for dark colors than you will for light colors like neon green or yellow. Yellow is typically a really light color and since I had trouble getting it to dye with a light concentration of food color to vinegar I really upped it for these tie dye eggs. From these little McCormick squeeze bottles of dye, 30 drops is a little over half of it so this is really concentrated but it’s the only way to get a nice, saturated light color.

Also, you might want to water down your dye but using vinegar only is a must for nice, brightly dyed eggs.

*Note – For 3 dozen eggs I used approximately a full ounce (2 Tablespoons) for each of my 3 colors, for a total of 3 ounces of homemade dye used.

Wrapping your eggs for a tie dye look:

Pour a small amount straight white vinegar into a shallow bowl. Do NOT water this down.

Take a small piece of tee shirt material or a paper towel and dip it into the straight vinegar.

Wring out the rag very well until it feels just damp. Using a wet rag will help your colors blend into one another for a truly tie dyed look. You do NOT want this to be super soaked with vinegar as it will blur out the dye and it will blend far too much.

Wrap the wet paper towel around the egg creating creases and folds as you go. Just like on a tie dyed tee shirt, the folds and creases will help to keep the dye from settling on the surface of the eggs in these places. This gives you spidery white areas that make tie dye POP!

Gently wrap 2 rubber bands around the egg, randomly placed. Take care to be careful while doing this step to not make the bands too tight. Though hard boiled, these eggs are still able to crack open with too much pressure.

Application of DIY egg tie dye:

Apply small dots of dye using your applicator bottles or eye dropper around the surface of the egg. Watch the egg for these first few drops. Does the color really spread? Your paper towel is probably far too wet. Set this egg off to the side and allow it to air dry until just damp before continuing to dye.

Continue adding color to your egg, a few drops at a time. See how the colors are slightly blending into one another but there is still really defined yellow, red and blue? This is exactly what you want so that your eggs don’t look like a muddy brown.

These eggs were tie dyed with far too much dye and the color is ugly and muddy. Egads, those aren’t pretty at all, are they?

Fully cover the paper towel in dye. Feel free to experiment with patterns placing the dye around randomly or in a circular fashion similar to on a swirl tie dye tee.

Place your egg in a sandwich bag and spin to close. Wrap a rubber band around the closed off area keeping as much air out of the bag as possible.

FYI – this is going to be one of those ugly brown green eggs. That is WAY TOO MUCH DYE. If it already looks brownish or overly green at this step, unwrap it and try again with less dye.

Give the dye time to work.

Because these eggs are edible and I wanted them to stay that way, my eggs went into the refrigerator for the dye to have time to soak into the shell.

If refrigerating your eggs, allow them to rest in the dye for 12-24 hours. If you’re not worried about eggs being edible, they don’t need to be refrigerated. In warmer conditions, like on a table at room temperature, the dye will work more quickly. These eggs need to only rest 4-8 hours depending on how saturated you want the colors to be.

Place your eggs on a cookie sheet in a single layer and allow to rest. Don’t place these in a bowl where they will apply pressure to the eggs beneath. The pressure moves a lot of the dye to the bottom of the egg where it will pool and turn brown.

Finishing your tie dye eggs:

Carefully remove the rubber bands from your first egg. Pull away the paper towel and set the egg down on a clean surface to dry. If you’re happy with the color you can continue unwrapping your other eggs. If it’s a bit too light, allow the remainder of the eggs more time to sit in the dye.

Wait for the dye is dry to the touch. For a gorgeous sheen, place 3-4 drops of vegetable oil onto the egg’s surface. Rub the oil into the egg’s shell with your hands and then buff away the excess oil with a cloth or paper towel until it is no longer slippery.

Enjoy your tie dye eggs!

Goodness, me! Aren’t those tie dye eggs just so pretty!?! With them all together you can kind of see which eggs sat in the dye longer because the colors are a bit darker.

Though getting specific results out of tie dye is difficult, having a general idea of how dye or the rag were applied can help you get closer to a look you’re hoping for…

This look is accomplished by twisting the rag into a spiral and then placing it onto the face of the egg. Where the spiral is applied to the egg will be white since we can’t apply a ton of dye to saturate through that thick cluster of folds.

For a more random design, apply your dye onto the rag in dots.

And if looking for a more traditional spiral type design. apply the dye in a circular fashion.

Or, if you just want some awesome eggs, wing it and see what you come out with! Just like a tie dye tee, each egg is completely different and I absolutely LOVE that about this project!