Crayon Easter Eggs

An easy, mess free way to decorate your easter eggs this year with items you most likely already have. 

There are lots of store bought kits out there to help kids and adults alike dye their Easter eggs, and the results are beautiful. This year, I felt like doing something a little different with materials I already had. As a kid I had countless crayons--broken ones and sharp new ones in what seemed like every color of the rainbow--which have become my new medium for Easter egg decorations. The wax melts beautifully, there are hundreds of colors, and it's mess free with great results. 

Gather the following:

• Eggs
• Crayons
• Bottle Caps (1 for each Egg Decorator)
• Kitchen Pot
• Spoon
• Dish Towel

Boil your eggs using your favorite method. I place the eggs in a pot of water over high heat on the stove. Once the water is boiling, I turn off the heat and place a lid on the eggs. I then wait for 8-10 minutes while the eggs sit in their just boiled water.

Boiling is a key step because it heats your eggs up. The crayons will only melt onto the eggs if each egg is hot. 

Once your eggs have boiled, remove them from the pot of hot water with a spoon. Dry them with a dish towel. This is essential since the crayon wax will not stick to wet eggs vary well. Let your eggs cool off a little bit, but remember they have to be hot enough to melt the wax.

NOTE: I like to remove the eggs with a spoon instead of draining the eggs so that I can reuse the water for other things like watering my plants once it's cooled. 

To avoid little hands getting burned, prop your freshly boiled egg up on an inverted bottle cap. This will hold your egg steady as your decorate it.

This is a great time to also remind kids that the egg is hot and that it can burn them. If they are still inclined to touch it or hold on to it while they're drawing try giving them a dish towel to utilize as a barrier between the egg and their skin. 

Start decorating. Draw with your crayon by pressing it's tip lightly against the warm egg shell. Don't press too hard or your egg may fall over. Get creative and try different designs and different shell colors for the eggs. As you run out of room carefully (with adult help) rotate the egg in it's bottle cap holder, revealing more blank egg shell. You can also balance it on it's side if that helps with your design.

When you're done decorating, let your eggs cool for 20 minutes before moving them. The eggs stay hot for quite some time and consequently the wax can also stay hot and tacky. If you let them cool down, you'll avoid smudging your beautiful designs as well as avoid getting wax on other surfaces. 

You're done and hopefully you're mess free. Enjoy your newly decorated eggs as a centerpiece, on an Easter egg hunt, or to eat. I bet they're eggcellent. :D

That's all yolks!