Easter Egg Decorating Tips from PAAS

An eggshell is like a blank piece of paper. With any PAAS decorating kit, a little help from a parent or responsible adult, and their imagination, kids can create Easter eggs as fun, interesting, and unique as they are! These tips can help.

You can decorate hard-cooked or empty eggs.

Use these guidelines to help you decide which kind will work best for your family:

• Hard-cooked eggs are best when you want a sturdy egg for hiding and when you want to eat them when you’re done. They are also easier for younger children to handle. Here’s how to prepare the perfect hard cooked egg. (Download PDF file)
  
  
• Empty your eggs if you want to keep them for a long time and bring them out to display year-after-year. If you want to keep your decorated eggs for a long time, you can strengthen them by covering them with layers of paper towels or similar paper stuck on with white glue or homemade flour-and-water paste. Here’s how to empty eggs. (Download PDF file)
  
• Looking for PAAS dye kit directions? (Download PDF file)
  

Everyone should wash their hands in hot, soapy water before and after handling eggs (even if they’ve already been cooked or decorated)! This protects everyone from any bacteria on the egg, and protects the eggshell from any oils on hands that may make the dye not adhere. Make sure an adult supervises all projects to ensure common sense food safety precautions are observed.

Hold on to those eggs! No more dropping – with PAAS Grip ‘n’ Dip! This “eggcential” accessory automatically adjusts for the perfect fit around the egg every time, letting little hands dip it into the dye securely.

Kids don’t have to be highly creative to create an eggceptional egg. Help kids use their imagination to create cool looking eggs by gluing on fun materials found at craft stores, like fake gems, sequins, trims and ribbons. They can also use paint, including gold or silver metallic paints, to make their eggs “eggstra” special!

To create an egg with a face, create a light flesh color by dipping your egg in a dye that’s made of a little bit of red and yellow coloring; for a darker flesh color, use a little red, yellow, and green. Then let kids “eggspress” themselves – with a smile or other look they paint on (or use the method below to create a “Pysanky” face). PAAS Egg Heads™ and EGGspress Yourself kits are a fun and easy option to create egg faces.

To make eggs with several different colors (sometimes called a “Pysanky,” or Ukranian egg), have kids draw on their egg with the clear wax “magic crayon” found in many PAAS decorating kits. Each time they use the crayon, they protect that color from dye. For example, keep an area white by drawing on the egg before they dip your egg in any color. Then dip the egg in the lighter colored dye first and then move to darker colored dyes. Just be sure to let the first dye color dry before dipping it into next color “bath.” Cover up more areas to keep the color, and peel the wax off of other areas to add color. When they’ve finished dying your “Pysanky,” peel off all the wax layers to reveal an interesting multi-color design. Polish the egg by rubbing in any remaining wax (heat egg slightly in hot water).

True or False! Americans are Easter Egg Experts?

Test your knowledge of Easter and Easter egg decorating trivia with PAAS true or false quiz.

If you lay all of the PAAS kits sold each year end-to-end, they would reach from Miami, Florida, to Chicago, Illinois. That’s nearly 1,400 miles!

Thirteenth-century Macedonians were the first Christians known to use colored eggs in their Easter celebrations. Crusaders returning from the Middle East spread the custom of coloring eggs, and Europeans then began to use colored eggs to celebrate Easter and other holidays.

Persians first began using colored eggs to celebrate spring in 3000 B.C. On the first day of spring, they would give each other an egg dyed red.

The ancient Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans all used colored eggs to celebrate spring. Among the Chinese, parents of newborn children still present gifts of colored eggs to their friends as a sign of new life.

If you lay all of the PAAS wire dippers end-to-end, they would equal the height of 6, 628 Washington Monuments.

Laying eggs is hard work! In fact, it takes 24-26 hours to complete the process, according to research from the University of Illinois-Urbana. Even the best brood hens cannot lay more than one egg a day.

South American Ameraucana and Araucan chickens can lay eggs that are green, blue, or pinkish in color.

(Answers: They’re all true!)

How to prepare the perfect hard-cooked egg

• Place eggs in single layer in saucepan. Add water to at least 1” above eggs.
• Cover. Quickly bring just to boiling. Turn off heat.
• If necessary, remove pan from burner to prevent further boiling. Let eggs stand, covered, in the hot water for 15 minutes for large eggs (12 minutes for medium eggs, 18 for extra large eggs).
• Immediately run cold water over eggs or place them in ice water until completely cooled.

Tips for preparing hard-cooked eggs:

• Only cook one layer of eggs at a time. Rapidly boiling water causes the eggs to bump against one another, which is more likely to cause cracking.

• To avoid cracking as well as the harmless, greenish ring around hard-cooked yolks, avoid over-cooking. Also, cool the eggs quickly after cooking by running cold water over them or placing them in ice water until completely cooled.

• Once eggs have cooled, refrigerate them in their shells until use.

• Hard-cooked eggs in the shell can be refrigerated up to one week. Hard-cooked eggs out of the shell should be used immediately.

To “empty” eggs for decorating:

• Use a pin or needle to make a hole in the fat end of a raw egg. Wiggle the needle around or use a nail to create a slightly larger hole. The hole should be about ¼ ” across, or about the size of a pencil eraser.
• Make a hole in the opposite end of the egg. This hole can be much smaller. Insert the needle into the egg to break the yolk (this makes it easier to remove the egg). Use a baby’s nose aspirator, or simply your mouth, to blow into the small hole to remove the egg yolk and egg white into a large bowl. When the egg has been removed from the shell, run water into the eggshell, shake it to rinse the insides well, and pour it out.