As pretty as dyed Easter eggs can look I’m not really a fan of the whole process so this year we went with (what I thought was) a less messy version of decorating eggs. Our dye-free Easter eggs were easy to prep for, and while not as mess-free as I thought, still a lot cleaner than dying eggs.
We took our inspiration from Jory John’s new book The Good Egg and went to work on our Target craft eggs with Sterling’s washable markers.
The Good Egg has lots of crazy eggs in it (Meg, Peg, Gregg, Clegg, Shel, Shelly, Sheldon, Shelby, Egbert, Frank, other Frank and of course the Good Egg to be precise) and we had fun picking which names went to which egg as we went. I gave Sterling free rein to color them however he wanted but he decided we should copy one page in the book and I love how our eggs came out although I am still having a hard time telling Frank and other Frank apart.
Pros:
- No need to boil and then let cool eggs.
- No dye to mess with.
- No lingering smell of vinegar in my house.
- No cracking.
- Getting to tie our eggs back to a fun story and discuss the book while we colored.
Cons:
- Sterling’s pink shirt will attest that this was not a mess-free activity but a good wash should take care of that.
- The washable markers can smear a bit, but we actually used this to our advantage and blended with our fingers.
Overall this was a great alternative to dying Easter eggs and we’ll probably do it for years to come. It’s also a great idea to do with a class or story time group as you could give each child one to two eggs to decorate after reading the book as a class.
