Egg-dyeing kits with fizzy dye tablets! Egg-dyeing kits with shrink-wrap sleeves! Egg-dyeing kits with stencils and color-changing markers to color in the stencils! Yuck. Not only do you NOT have to spend your chocolate bunny budget on a store-bought egg-decorating kit, but by using recycled materials in your egg decorating projects, you can create Easter eggs pretty much for free and also rescue more trash from the waste stream. Here are five excellent (are you going to thank me for not typing egg-cellent?) projects to get you started: Banking on the fact that many silk ties are just awful, Kelly Rand’s tutorial on dyeing eggs with silk ties puts the ties with the most blatant, garish, hideous patterns and colors out of their misery. I’m a fan of this method because, since transferring the dye requires that you boil the egg in its silk tie wrapper, you can start with raw eggs and end up with hard-boiled ones. Yay for skipping a step! Mind you, they weren’t the best hard-boiled eggs that I’ve tasted in my life, since the recipe requires that they be boiled for twice as long as I hard-boil my own eggs, but you’re going to be eating hard-boiled eggs for the next month, anyway, so quality kind of loses its meaning after a while. [The image on this page belongs to Kelly Rand.] Next » I am a huge fan of heirloom-quality Easter eggs that my family can use year after year, and every spring I try to add to our collection. These Easter eggs from plastic water bottles and fabric scraps, created by Cristin Frank at favecrafts, take some time to create, but the results have that retro look that make them already look like the heirlooms that they’re going to be. My favorite part of this project is that you have complete control over the color scheme of the eggs, based on your choices of fabric color and pattern when creating the fabric braids–your eggs can be either completely random, or highly tailored to a particular color scheme. [The image on this page belongs to Cristin Frank.] Next » If you’re a knitter, then I hope that you haven’t been throwing away all the odds and ends of yarn that are leftover at the end of a knitting project, because you are going to want to use every bit–seriously, every bit!–to make these knitted Easter eggs from The Purl Bee. To use them as conventional Easter eggs, simply omit the hanging loop from the tutorial. [The image on this page is the property of Purl Soho.] Next » If you’re ready to let go of a favorite vintage magazine or a torn picture book, then check out this easy tutorial on decoupaged Easter eggs from A Patchwork World. The ability to choose your paper is what makes this so fun. Comic books? Tissue paper? Chinese language newspaper? Creepy shrunken head? Sure! [The image on this page belongs to A Patchwork World.] Next » You can do a lot with stash scrapbook supplies. Just look at these perfect Easter eggs, dyed and then decorated with scrapbook rub-ons by Scrapscene. Other stash scrapbook supplies that would look great on Easter eggs are water-slide decals, glitter, rhinestones, stickers, ribbons, and stamps. Basically, if you’ve got it, you can use it! [The image on this page is the property of Scrapscene.]
