Note from Cheri: Before you can color Easter Eggs, you have to boil Easter Eggs. Without the right techniques, you could end up with yolks that are dry, hard and tinged with green. Yuck! Follow this link to learn how to boil Perfect Easter Eggs, so your eggs will taste as good as they look! After Easter, be sure to check out The 10 Best Things to do with Leftover Easter Eggs

We think we came up with some pretty fabulous egg designs this year. Just about everything we used to make the eggs in the basket above is in the photo below. You'll find detailed directions, as well as a list of supplies, for the individual designs by following the links. While we utilized various techniques to achieve the results you see, all of the eggs have one things in common, the basic egg dye recipe.

Egg Dye Recipe

Why buy packaged egg coloring kits when you probably already have everything you need right in your pantry?

To make a rainbow of egg hues, you can use either liquid or paste food coloring, although I find using paste gives extra bright and, depending upon how large a dab of paste I use, more intese color. (Follow this link to order a set of paste colors, good not only for coloring eggs, but for decorating cakes, cookies and just about anything your imagination can conjure.)

You'll need a separate cup for each color, large enough to hold an egg and the liquid. Dissolve a dab of paste food color, or about 6-8 drops of regular liquid food color, in 1 cup of hot water. Stir in 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar and your egg dye is ready to go!

General Egg Dying Hints

• Covering your work area with plenty of newspaper or other paper makes clean up afterward a snap -- just gather up the mess and throw it out in one fell swoop
• An empty egg carton makes a good drying rack (see photo), but liquid tends to collect at the bottom so use caution when lifting eggs out of the drying rach and blot the bottoms carefully with a dry paper towel so the color doesn't run
• Making sure eggs are completely dry between color coats is probably the one most important tip for great Easter eggs - absorbent paper towels, used to carefully blot the eggs, can help finish the process
• Wearing rubber gloves will help your fingers avoid getting stained with food coloring -- and they will regardless of how careful you are
• If you don't want to color boiled eggs, you can also use hollow egg shells in which the contents have been "blown" out. Follow this link for directions how.