Little Explorers: Marbled Easter Eggs

Here’s a flash back to the old-school method of marbling eggs to create natural mementos that can last a lifetime (with careful handling). These beauties are each unique and otherworldly. Your Little Explorers will be proud of their creations, which you may even want to keep for ever!

You will need:

• Eggs – duck eggs if possible
• White vinegar
• Food dyes
• Wooden skewers

It is worth the effort of blowing the eggs, rather than hard-boiling them if you’d like to keep these treasures. To blow the egg, use a pin to create small holes in the top, then bottom of the egg. Make the base hole slightly larger than the top one, then poke around inside the egg with a pin or skewer to break the internal sack. Now blow out the insides and save it for an omelette! You will need a lot of puff. When the egg is clear, rinse it under the tap and dry for 10-20 seconds in the microwave.

To make the dye solution, fill a glass with hot water and add two tsp of food dye, and two tsp of vinegar. The vinegar helps the dye bind to the egg. Dunk your eggs in for as long as you like, to create the depth of hue you are looking for. You can create a range of colours at this stage and they already look fabulous if this is as far as you’d like to go with the project.

To create the marbling solution, we recommend a mix of undiluted dye, 1 tsp vinegar and 1 tbsp oil, poured into a shallow dish. Take your dyed and now dried egg and swirl it in the mix. The dye will adhere to the egg in marbled globules as the oil prevents it mixing fully.

You can experiment with colours and mixes galore! Let them drip dry, then pat away any excess oil with kitchen towel. These eggs will truly last a lifetime if they are cared for.

Let us know how you get along!