How to Dye Polka Dot Eggs

Save your used birthday candles to make these eye-catching polka dot eggs.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Egg Dye
• Birthday Candles
• Eggs
• Egg Cartons
• Egg-dipping Bowls
• Slotted Spoons
• Old Newspapers
• Lighter Or Matches

1. Hard-boil or hollow out several white eggs to decorate (see "eHow to Hollow Out an Egg').
2. Lay out newspaper on your work area to protect it from dripping wax.
3. Choose your dye colors - you'll want a lighter base color for the polka dots and a darker color for the rest of the egg surface. Prepare the dye according to the directions on the package.
4. Dye the egg your base color. It should be a light color, such as yellow or pale pink.
5. Place the egg on a paper egg holder (see Tips) and let it dry thoroughly.
6. Light a candle. For this project, you will need the small candles that are sold as birthday candles.
7. Hold an egg in one hand and the lighted candle in the other.
8. Allow the melted candle wax to drip onto the egg, forming small circles of wax on the shell. Take care not to burn your fingers.
9. Turn the egg slowly so that the wax cools as you go and drips of wax cover the top half of the egg evenly, spacing the circles evenly apart to create a polka dot effect. It's difficult to control exactly where the drops of melted wax will fall on the egg. However, the spontaneity of the drops adds to the beauty of the finished egg.
10. Set the egg on a paper egg holder to allow the wax to cool and harden. You won't be able to wax the whole egg without burning your fingers, so do one end, let it dry, then repeat steps 7 through 9 to do the other.
11. Dye the egg with the darker color to tint the surface that does not have wax on it.
12. Allow the egg to dry.
13. Remove the wax by scraping it off with your fingernail if the egg is hard-boiled. Or, if you're using a hollowed-out egg, wrap the egg in foil and place it in the oven at 200 degrees F for 5 minutes or until the wax softens. Then wipe off the wax with a paper towel.

Tips & Warnings

• You can make a simple egg holder by rolling up a strip of thick paper into a small cylinder about 2 to 3 inches high and about 1 inch in diameter and then securing it with tape. A section of a toilet paper roll could also work.
• You can dye the egg more than two colors. Follow steps 1 through 12. Then scrape off some of the wax dots and dye the egg in the darkest color before scraping away the remaining wax dots. A good dye sequence would be yellow, orange, red, or yellow, green, blue.
• Handle burning candles with extreme caution. Both the flame and the hot wax can cause serious burns.
• Never allow children to handle burning candles or matches.