Adult Crafting Rice Dyed Easter Eggs – A Fun Unexpected Outcome

I almost didn’t share this project on the blog.

Especially just a few days before Easter. Other bloggers shared their Easter egg crafts weeks ago. So I felt behind. But some readers may be decorating eggs during the weekend so another post about dying Easter eggs may be helpful.

This was actually an unplanned craft project for me. At a recent estate sale, I purchased a large bag of assorted faux Easter eggs, which gave me the opportunity to enjoy an afternoon of adult Easter egg decorating with rice and dried flowers.

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An unexpected find at an Estate sale.

Just $10 for a large bag of assorted faux Easter eggs. It was definitely an unexpected find.

Inside was an assortment of faux Easter eggs in different sizes and styles. The larger ones were covered in colorful glitter; a few smaller ones appeared to be hand-painted with flowers; some had a speckled appearance; many were colored with ribbon hangers for an egg tree; and there were so many that seemed to be covered in tape for an unfinished craft project.

This bag gave me several projects at one time.

My first Easter Egg tree!

The decorative speckled eggs and the ribboned ones were perfect for my first Easter egg tree. I filled a glass vase with the colored, speckled eggs to hold the white faux branches in place, then hung the ribboned eggs on the branches.

This became my first Easter egg tree displayed on my mantel.

Deciding what to do with the eggs covered in tape stripes

The hand-painted faux eggs with dainty flowers were perfect for a tiered tray display. But before putting that together, I needed to figure out what to do about the unpainted eggs that had been taped to create striped eggs. The tape stripes are of different colors so my best guess is that someone used tape instead of paint to create the striped effect on the faux eggs. Not a bad idea overall, but I wasn’t keen on leaving them that way (of course).

I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to do with them, but I decided I didn’t want the striped look. So I removed all of the tape and started the dying process.

You will laugh at what happened next.

Trying out the rice dye technique.

I have seen this technique for dyeing eggs with rice and food coloring before, but I had never tried it. I had both rice and food coloring in my pantry, so why not give it a try?

Before I share how that turned out, I need to share a quick note and story.

The last time I used rice in a craft project, I received several hateful comments that I was wasting food when other people in the world were starving!

This time, let me just say that I used an older bag of half-used brown rice that had been in my pantry for more than a year – because brown rice is not our favorite – so it was either let it sit in the pantry even longer, or finally use it for something. Using it to dye faux eggs is better than throwing it away, in my opinion. Please, no hateful comments this time.

Dying eggs in rice and food coloring is actually a very simple process – and fun too. I put a cup of rice in each individual plastic zip-top bag and added 20 to 30 drops of food-safe dye in bright neon colors. Close the bag and shake it to blend the food coloring all through the rice. I only had Neon food colors in my pantry, so that is what I used.

Then you just drop a faux egg into the bag and shake it.

The finished product is a unique speckled texture. I was pleasantly surprised by how well they turned out and how much easier it was than my childhood memories of using white vinegar to dye hard-boiled eggs.

I may have accidentally discovered a new dye technique??

However, this is the part that made me laugh.

I didn’t consider the tape residue left behind on the faux eggs and how it would affect the dying process.

Every one of the faux eggs dyed in the rice mixture came out striped!

So I had removed the tape because I didn’t want a striped design on the eggs, but that is exactly what I got anyway.

The dye is lighter where the tape residue had been on the eggs.

The final dyed look with the stripes was so much better this way! And very unique, in my opinion.

Adding the pressed flowers

To finish off my adult crafting day of decorated eggs, I added small pressed dried flowers and stems to the rice-dyed faux eggs and solid colored eggs with a dab of Tacky Glue.

Nestled atop the Easter basket’s faux grass are all these beautiful Easter eggs. The flower-covered eggs, the large glitter eggs, and the hand-painted eggs are all on display in a vintage tiered tray on the mantel. Also shown is a beaded mini bunny I made last Easter, and mini gold bunny figurines from Target.

If you are interested in more last-minute Easter crafts, then enjoy this post on Easter Candy Jars and Mini Flower Covered Bunnies.

Pin For Later

I hope you pin this idea for next Spring. Happy Easter!

 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” — John 3:16