Dying Easter Eggs

Our first attempt..until he touched the Cool Whip

I love when I have this wonderful image in my mind of an activity that Callen and I are going to do together. It's going to be fun, entertaining, and occupy at least an hour of the day. And then reality hits...Callen will have nothing to do with the activity, and I end up spending more time prepping and cleaning up than he spends in total playing. That was us with dying Easter eggs today! I knew Callen would be easily bored or make a complete mess with the traditional method of dropping the egg in colored water and waiting for it to be ready. I could see him tipping over the cups, dunking his hand in a bright blue color, or drinking the water. While reading different blogs, I saw several posts talking about using shaving cream or Cool Whip and food coloring to dye eggs. Simple technique...spread the shaving cream or Cool Whip in a glass or ceramic dish, drop a few drops of food coloring (2 colors is best), swirl the colors together, and then roll the eggs in them. You allow the eggs to sit for a while and then wipe off the exterior. Viola! Colored Easter eggs. 

I thought this would be great for Cal and me to attempt. I figured it would be a good interactive activity and allow Cal to actually color some of the eggs on his own. I opted for Cool Whip in case Cal decided to take it to the mouth. I had everything set up on the back deck and Aunt Kimber and Ella came by to help with the activity. We were ready to go...until the kiddos touched the Cool Whip! Instantly hands were jerked back and trying to shake off the Cool Whip that had made it on to the fingers. I tried to show Cal that you could eat the Cool Whip thinking he might touch it if he knew he could eat it. He didn't fall for that trick unlike Ella! She was all about eating the Cool Whip!

After handing Cal an egg and letting him play with it for a little while, he finally dipped it in the coloring mixture and swirled it around for a second. I feel lucky that he dyed ONE egg on his own. Ella and Kimber did a few, and I was left to finish the remainder of the 18 eggs I had hard boiled.

Taste testing the eggs before dying

Finally going in for the dip

The eggs after the dye

I put them in the fridge for about 4 hours before wiping clean. One thing I learned...wipe clean with a paper towel and not rinse with water! You are left with white eggs if you rinse with water!

The finished product!

Even though this activity did not go as I had thought it would, I still enjoyed it. I think it will be a fun technique to use in years to come for Cal as he can help choose the color combinations and help make the egg to look like he wants it to. For now, this was a good sensory experience for the kids and a reality check for mom that nothing goes as planned!!!