The sound of birds chirping outside on a beautiful spring day. The smell of vinegar lingers throughout the kitchen. Steam floats off of recently boiled eggs. Dye stains your hands light pink and blue.

Easter egg dyeing is a classic spring tradition. Throughout time, we have dyed eggs to represent new life spring brings and to celebrate Easter. You’ve probably picked up a random egg dyeing kit from the store to enjoy the fun tradition you’ve participated in since you were a child. Why not during this strange year spice it up and dye your eggs in a new, strange way? Here are five different ways I tried to dye eggs in a new and exciting way.

Rice Dyeing-

Rice is known for having other uses than just eating. Rice is said to help revive a phone after being submerged in water, though it doesn’t seem to work great. Rice can be used to keep salt from clumping and to help ripen fruits faster. Today you’re going to learn about one of rice’s greatest skills – dyeing eggs.

  This was my favorite way to dye the eggs. It was super easy and had some of the best results. All you need is rice, food dye, and, of course, your boiled egg. You simply put some food dye on top of the laid out rice, and then roll the egg around in it. You can roll the egg in multiple batches of colored rice to create a multicolored masterpiece. It may seem weird to roll an egg in rice and your hands will totally be dyed an odd color, but the results were worth it. The finished product revealed a beautifully colored egg with a speckled design. For the low amount of time it takes to decorate these eggs, the eggs turned out quite egg-celent.

Shaving cream/ whipped cream dye-

By using your dad’s shaving product or the delish cream you secretly spray straight into your mouth, you can dye some stunningly colored eggs. 

For these eggs, you can use either shaving cream or whipped cream. If you plan on eating your eggs after they are dyed, use the whipped cream, like I did. You first spray your chosen cream on a pan. Then add whatever colors you want to the top of the cream. 

I separated the whipped cream into patches so the color combinations wouldn’t get too mixed up. Now you will be transported back to kindergarten, where you wrote spelling words out on your desk in whipped cream, as you roll your egg in the cream. Once you finish rolling your egg, let it sit for a few minutes with the cream still on it before wiping the extra cream off. This helps with the egg keeping the color. 

These eggs were my second favorite. They were very entertaining to make but extremely messy. Whipped cream was spread all over the counters and hands were stained by food dye, but the product had a whimsical color that made up for the mess. 

Tie-Dye Eggs-

As someone who went through multiple quarantine projects to ease the boredom of being stuck at home, tie-dyeing has become an old friend. Tie-dyeing eggs are extremely easy and don’t require the use of tons of rubber bands, unlike tie-dyeing a shirt. You simply wrap your boiled egg in a vinegar-soaked paper towel. It’s important not to make the paper towel wrap too thick, or the dye can’t soak through to the egg. Then press the food dye bottles to the paper towel to tie-dye your egg. You can use multiple colors but using more than three or four colors will cause the colors to blend into a mess. 

The tie-dyeing strategy was my third favorite way to dye eggs. There was a bit of a problem with getting the dye on to the eggs, though. If you unwrap the paper towel and the egg isn’t completely dyed, just rub the dyed towel on the egg. Full disclosure, this gets a little messy, since the dye gets all over your hands. After fixing the slight issue with the dyeing, the eggs embraced a vibrant color and subtle pattern.

Crayon Melt Eggs-

As someone with multiple younger siblings, old crayons can be easily obtained. This way of decorating eggs will put them to good use. Directly after the eggs finish boiling, sprinkle crayon shavings on top to make a colorful, melted design. You can also draw on the hot egg directly with the crayon to make your own drawings and designs. 

These eggs were simple to make, except for making crayon shavings. I thought back to my younger elementary years and decided that using a pencil sharpener would be a good way to get crayon shavings. As you may have guessed, it didn’t work great. I learned that crayons aren’t meant to be used in a pencil sharpener, they’re too big. I also tried using a cheese grater and knife, but both tools had extremely slow results. Though the process took forever, the eggs had a funky, colorful result that scored this egg fourth place. 

Natural Dyeing-

My least favorite way of decorating was natural dyeing the eggs with other foods. For this way of coloring, you just simmer a cup of water, a little bit of vinegar, and your chosen food in a pan. Then just dye your eggs in the mixture like normal. I used beets, purple lettuce, red onion skins, and blueberries for the dye. Sadly, the purple lettuce didn’t change the color of the egg at all. Though the beets made the eggs a ravishing red color. The blueberries changed them to a beguiling blue. Lastly, the red onion skins surprised me with a gorgeous green-yellow color. 

This way of dyeing comes in last place due to the large amount of time it took to complete. Each food product had to simmer separately and one food product didn’t even work. The plus side to dyeing this way was getting to experiment with the different foods. Nothing makes you feel more like a mix between a mad scientist and chef than cutting and cooking random foods to soak an egg in. 

Overall, all five ways of dyeing eggs ended up beautiful and were very entertaining to make. This Easter, step out of your normal egg dyeing traditions and spice it up with one of these egg-citing dyeing techniques. They’re tons of fun and you’re guaranteed to get a new and different spin on an old tradition.