August Easter Eggs

Funny thing about August, it's hard to find Easter egg dye, go figure. But Easter egg dying is exactly what I had in mind on this hot August day. Why? I am sure you are wondering. Have I lost my faculties? Is it time to question my sanity, even more than normal? No, not this time. There is a perfectly good explanation.

This weekend is my daughter's bridal shower. As the theme we are doing the seasons of the year. One of the seasons, of course being spring, and what says spring more than Easter.

Instead of boiling the eggs, I didn't want to take the chance of having rotten eggs by Saturday, I decided to blow the eggs. I seem to remember the process being much easier when I was much younger. I ended up with a head ache and a sore jaw. (Take your mind out of the gutter please.) It took most of the morning to get 13 eggs emptied out so they could be dyed. I was out of breath and exhausted by the end of the process.

 Now it was time to dye. My first try was to use watercolor paint. It worked, and I was happy with the result, mostly. It didn't really look like an Easter egg though. I got out the food coloring and experimented with it. My first try was an utter failure. I tried just dropping the coloring on the egg and letting it run down the egg. It looked ok, except that the egg was sitting in a pool of a mix of colors and it looked awful.

Next try was to make egg dye. I used cold water, vinegar, and the food coloring. The only reason I used the vinegar is that when you buy egg dye you have to use vinegar. I don't know that it really made any difference, but I added it anyway. It seemed to work. The colors were vibrant, and rich. I dropped the food coloring on the wet eggs and spun them on a paint brush. That was fun and made some cool effects. I was pretty happy with how that all worked out.

I wanted to personalize them a little too. I used a black sharpie to put Shane and Alyssa's initials on two of the eggs, and then an L on another. I was pretty proud of how those turned out. Then I put each of their names and Kahlen's name on three of the eggs.

 I decided to get even more creative and tried to draw a bride and groom on two of them. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I'll let you decide whether I am misguided in my happiness.

I got them all done. My ears were still ringing from blowing them. I decided to put them in the basket I had bought on clearance sale from Pottery Barn after real Easter, to take a picture to send Shane's mom and sister. We and my daughter Valerie are all planning this shower together. Since I am 400 miles away, sending pictures is my only way of letting them know what I am doing.

I get the pictures all set up and taken. I go to sit on the couch for a minute to get them all sent. As I relax for a minute, a gust of wind comes in the window. The curtain blows at full force. The sound of eggs crashing all over the table and on to the hardwood floor cut through my heart like a knife. I immediately jump up and run over. My heart breaking with each new cracking noise. Tears well up in my eyes. I wanted to scream! The one thing I can really do for this shower, was all of my hard work destroyed? Are you kidding me with this? I picked up each egg, carefully. I looked at them expecting the worst. They weren't destroyed, but some were cracked. I was mad! Very mad! At least they were still usable, but they weren't how I wanted them. It seems lately, everything ends in disaster.