There are a few things as a parent that I just can’t do. To be honest, they mostly revolve around events with the probability of large messes. Playdoh, glitter, finger painting, and the horror that is EASTER EGG COLORING!
Yup, I am not afraid to admit it, my kids have NEVER dyed eggs! It scares the daylight out of me. Food coloring, liquids, eggs, all I foresee is chaos and disaster!
Well, my fears were faced when my sister in law found this idea using rice. We boiled some eggs, put on our Pinterest Mom Pants and went for it! OH MY GOODNESS was this amazing. No messes, no liquid food coloring cups to spill, and no smelly vinegar. NOTHING to worry about.
We had a mix of kids from age 3 – 13, plus lots of adults. Everyone of all ages enjoyed this and loved mixing the colors and getting unique results.
When I say no mess, I am not joking. After dying 48 eggs, we picked up a few random pieces of rice. Not a single drip of food coloring, no sloppy newspapers on a table, zero ruined clothes – absolutely nothing to stress over.
📍 Pin HERE for Later!
What you need:
- Sandwich Size Ziplock Bags
- Minute/Instant White Rice (must be quick cooking rice)
- Liquid Food Coloring
- Hard Boiled Eggs (check out our tips HERE)
- Cooling Rack
Make the Eggs:
- Fill baggies with about 1 c. of rice (we did 15 bags; but you can do as many or as few as you want)
- Add 15 drops of color to a bag
- Add 1 egg to baggie
- Remove the air and seal bag
- Gently shake, knead, and toss the bag around until the egg is colored. The longer you mix, the more color is on the egg.
- You can use tongs or just roll the egg out of the bag onto a cooling rack to dry. If you touch with your bare fingers, you will get VERY colored fingers because the eggs are still wet. Allow to dry for about 20 minutes.
- You can put the egg into a different color of rice and get a beautiful mixed color egg.
- We did mix some of the rice colors together in a bag and got very fun results. The options are limitless.
- About every 3 eggs we needed to refresh the food coloring with a few more drops to keep vibrant colors.
- It is HIGHLY recommended to keep an adult on food color patrol to keep spills and over pouring at a minimum; plus making sure each bag is properly resealed is vital!
Note: Remember you are using undiluted food color. Anything that comes into contact with the wet eggs will be heavily dyed! We did have a few dyed fingers!
I would not cook and eat the rice. With the volume of food color it would be quite the pot of gray! You can dry the rice and use it for a sensory table activity.
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