Silk Dyed Easter Eggs

I saw this idea for silk-dyed Easter eggs over at Our Best Bites and I immediately wanted to try it out with the kiddos.  It was so much fun to try something new!  Here's what we did:

- Empty the eggs by carefully poking a hole in the top and bottom of an egg with a safety pin.  Pick at the holes with your pin until they're big enough to fit a small skewer into. Put the skewer into the egg and scramble everything up really good. 

The ladies over at Our Best Bites had the brilliant idea of using a bulb syringe to get the insides out of the egg.  I didn't have one so I did it the old fashioned way.  Kind of like blowing up a balloon, blow all of the gunk out of the egg.  (My kids thought this part was awfully funny.)  Rinse the egg a few times.

- We picked out some of the ugliest ties that we could find from the D.I. (the local thrift store).  Make sure that they are 100% Silk.  Polyester ain't gonna cut it.

-This was another step that the kids loved.  Disassemble the ties.  I just snipped a few of the more obvious seams and then ripped it by hand after that.  When this part is done you'll be left with just the silk.

- Tightly wrap the tie around an egg.  The right side of the tie (the part that faces out if you were wearing it) should be touching the egg.  I used rubber bands and twisty ties to secure them.  They'll look something like this:

- Wrap each of the eggs with a piece of light weight, white fabric. (While I was at the D.I. I also picked up a white sheet.)

- Put all of the little bundles in a pot of boiling water and 1/4 cup vinegar.  They'll boil for about 20 mins.

- After they were done boiling I put them in a colander to drain a bit and cool down.  As soon as they were cool enough to touch I was unwrapping them.  Here's what we found:

Each egg was a surprise.  Some of the them turned out great, a few were a little blah.  It seemed that the reds and blues came out looking the most vibrant.  Some of the ties that I thought would be duds turned out the most beautifully.

So, if you have some old ties lying around or if you end up at a thrift store before Easter give this a try.  The kids had so much fun with it (and so did I)!

*If you decide not to empty the eggs out before dyeing them, don't eat them afterward. The dyes in ties aren't made to be safe to consume.