Even more ideas…

We hope you have many great experiences with the Living Eggs programme. To help you customise the programme to your needs, we have included a number of ideas that will help incorporate the programme into your curriculum. Please let us know if you have anything you would like to share with others.

Decorated Eggs

Decorated eggs have been an intriguing part of folk art in many cultures for centuries. There is no end to the creative possibilities for decorating eggs, from the simple coloured eggs using textas or crayons to intricate Faberge eggs with hinged doors and satin linings. Every child can participate in decorating eggs at some stage of the process.

The following are some ideas and methods used to decorate eggs. We suggest you read through them and determine a method best suited to the age group of your children.

For eggs to be decorated, we suggest they be either hard boiled or empty shells. The hard boiled variety is a bit more sturdy for younger children to use, where as the empty shells are best if the eggs are to be kept for an extended period of time:

Hard Boiled Eggs Place the eggs in a saucepan with cold water, and bring to the boil. Once they come to a good boil, remove them from the heat and leave to stand for about 15-20 minutes.

Hollow Eggs The process of “blowing eggs” is not only messy, although that does improve with practice, but is can be time consuming and tiring on you cheeks! Use a pin or needle to make a small hole in either end of an egg. Move the pin around to make sure that you tear the membrane around the yolk. Blow through one end of the egg until the eggwhite and yolk are free of the egg. You will need to do this over a sink or bowl. One all the yolk and white is removed, rinse the eggs well with water to remove all traces of egg.

**Special Note Regardless of whether you are using hollow eggs or hard boiled eggs, if they are to be dyed, give them a wash in a mild detergent as this helps to remove the oil coating so that they colour evenly.

Methods To Colour Your Eggs:

 

Food Colouring Dyes

Materials needed:

  • Washed hard boiled or hollow eggs
  • Food colouring
  • Vinegar
  • Warm water
  • Cooking oil

To dye the eggshells, simply immerse them in warm water with a few drops of food colouring. Add a tablespoon full of vinegar per cup of water to set the colour. Leave the shells in for varied lengths of time to create different shades of colour to work with. Remove with a slotted spoon. When dry, polish the eggs with a little cooking oil and a soft cloth.

Natural Dyes

Materials needed:

  • Eggs
  • Water vinegar
  • Cooking oil
  • Foodstuff for colour required as listed below

Natural foodstuffs can be used to dye the egg shells, too. The following is a list of the foodstuffs to use for certain colours.

Material

Fresh beetroot, radishes, raspberries
Yellow onion skins
Orange or lemon skins, ground cumin or celery seed
Tumeric or saffron
Spinach leaves
Red cabbage leaves
Coffee Colour
pink/red
orange
light yellow
Yellow
pale green
blue
beige/brown

Simmer the eggs in water to cover for approximately 10-15 minutes. Remember to use 1 tablespoon of vinegar to every cup of water. Use your choice of material listed below to colour.

To give the eggs a darker shade, cover them with the dye and let them stand overnight in the refrigerator.

Remove with a slotted spoon and dry. Polish with a small amount of cooking oil and soft cloth Remember, this is an art form, not a science!!

Waxed Eggs

Materials needed:

  • Crayons
  • Hard boiled eggs
  • Food colouring

Draw heavy crayon patterns on the hard boiled eggs. Dip the eggs into a dark coloured dye until they become the desired colour. Remove with a slotted spoon and place in a 200 degree F oven for a few minutes until the wax is melted. Wipe with paper towel and dip again in lighter dye to fill in the pattern where the wax was. To finish, polish with cooking oil and a soft cloth.

Tie Dyed Eggs

Materials needed:

  • Masking tape
  • Rubber bands
  • Hard boiled eggs
  • Commercial dye/food colour
  • Cooking oil

Stick a pattern of masking tape or rubber bands on plain hard boiled eggs. Dip the eggs into a dye mixture and leave until the desired colour is obtained. Use the darkest colour first. Remove with a slotted spoon and air dry. Remove the masking tape etc when dry and dip again in another lighter coloured dye. When dry polish with oil and a soft cloth.

Special note: If using blows eggs for any of the above methods of decorating, spray with acrylic spray, decoupage finish paste or hairspray for a permanent finish.

Decoupage Eggs

Materials needed:

  • Eggs
  • Sealer and point
  • Pictures from magazines or wrapping paper
  • Braids, beads, etc for decoration
  • Craft glue, skewer and a rubber band

Wash and lightly sandpaper the egg smooth. Blow out the innards of the egg as detailed earlier. Clean the egg of all traces of yolk and white.

Coat the egg with a sealer and then paint. To enable you to paint at one time, place the egg on a skewer with a rubber band wrapped round so it wont go all the way through the egg.

Cut out a picture the right size to put on your egg from a magazine or gift paper. Be careful not to choose paper that is too thin as whatever is on the other side will come through when glued. Depending upon the size of the pictures, you may need to make little cuts into the picture so that it will fit the curved surface of the egg.

Carefully glue in place overlapping the cuts to make the picture fit. Cover the picture edged in braid, puff paint, beads, sequins etc. Attach a loop at the top of the egg for hanging.

Faberge Eggs

Faberge Eggs originated in Russia in 1884 when the Czar presented his wife Czarina Maria with an egg decorated by the goldsmith Carl Faberge. Faberge made these “Imperial Eggs” for the Czarina for many years and incorporated windows and doors so that surprise gifts could be placed inside them.

This craft has spread to many countries and has become a popular hobby.

Egg Heads

Materials needed:

  • Hard boiled eggs
  • Textas
  • Cotton wool
  • Seeds
  • Egg cups or cartons

Cut the tops off the eggs and eat them out if they are boiled, or empty the contents for later use. Place the eggshells into eggs cups or cartons Draw faces on each egg shell.

Fill the inside with cotton wool. Sprinkle seeds thickly on top. Water carefully so the seeds don’t wash out of the eggshell. The water level should be about at the top of the egg or just a little lower. Place the eggheads on a sunny windowsill.

Wait. Over the next few days the seeds will germinate and grow. Soon you’ll have egg heads with long green hair.

Give them a crewcut or a mohawk and eat it on a sandwich.

If you have other great ideas for things to do with eggs, email us
on info@livingeggs.co.uk and we will include them for everyone to enjoy.