Silk Tie Easter Eggs

I've seen tie-dyed Easter eggs (eggs dyed with silk ties) so many places this year. It seems to be the hot idea for this Easter season. Martha featured this idea on a recent show (or so I'm told ... I haven't yet watched that DVR'ed episode) and the instructions are found on the website.

I found some old, cheap silk ties at my local thrift store. Martha also suggests using silk blouses or thrift store boxers but I couldn't quite imagine cooking my eggs in someone's used unders. We stuck with the silk ties.

The process is very simple. Wrap the raw eggs in pieces of the silk ties with the printed side facing the egg, secure with an elastic band, and cover with water and three tablespoons of white vinegar. (Martha recommends wrapping the eggs again with a piece of white fabric. For better or for worse, we skipped this step.) Bring the water to a boil, and then let simmer for twenty minutes.

We were excited to unwrap the eggs and reveal the colors. While I was hoping for brightly colored eggs, we ended up with some neat designs. The eggs seem to take on the tie's design but not much of the tie's background color - something to think about when you're selecting a tie to use.

This is a fun and novel technique and something fun to try if you can't face one more PAAS kit.