Easter Egg Post #2-Sprinkles and Happiness

In case you missed it, I love sprinkles. And glitter. And foxes.

But this post is about sprinkles. And using them to make a ridiculously cool Easter Egg that is safe to eat. Now, you can do the undercoat with real Easter egg dye, or you can do it "naturally" with more sprinkles for a cooler effect.

Needs:
White eggs, hardboiled
One egg white, obviously not hardboiled
A paint brush, medium sized, to brush on the egg white
Another brush, small, to brush off the sprinkles
Nonpareil sprinkles in the rainbow of colors
A little bit of patience

Optional:
Sugar crystal sprinkles, I used varying shades of pink

Now, originally, I was hoping that covering my egg in the plain sugar crystal sprinkles would achieve the effect that I wanted. I mixed hot pink, green, and light pink sugar crystals in a styrofoam plate thing. Next, I covered the egg in egg white and rolled it in the sprinkles. I let that sit for a good deal of time. The green sprinkles didn't even leave color on the egg when I brushed them off. Instead, I got a very light pink coating that looked like a watercolor. Now, this looked really nice for the background of my egg. You can try the regular egg dye instead, but I would recommend light colors regardless. Don't want to compete with too much color when you put the nonpareils on.

After my egg had dried from that failed attempt, I decided to try the nonpareil sprinkles. (My mom tried this, using vinegar to leach the color and pantyhose to hold the sprinkles around the egg. But let's be frank, it turned out terrible) I used a glob of play dough to form around the bottom of my egg to sit it in while I was working on it. This was very convenient, and provided me the ability to work lightly on the egg without touching it.

I started with a spot of egg white painted on the front of the egg. you want a medium layer. Not too thin, or the sprinkles won't stick, but not thick enough that it never dries ever. Sprinkle the nonpareils over the spot, and when full coverage on the spot is achieved, gently pat them down onto it with your finger. Now, this is important. Don't let it fully dry before the next part. The wetness is what drags the color across the egg.

Take your little paint brush, and after picking a "center" of your sprinkle spot, brush the sprinkles gently off and away from the center. Work around it in a circle. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this to the best of my ability, but you're basically forming a firework looking thing of sorts around that center spot. You can see from the picture how I brushed away from it. You're essentially using each sprinkle as a one stroke serving of paint. As if each nonpareil loaded your brush up with enough paint for one and only one line away from the center. After letting this dry a bit, rotate the egg and repeat the process until your egg is visually balanced. I ended up with four "fireworks".

Note: Don't worry about the fact that some of the nonpareils are white. It annoyed me at first, but then I realized that they kept the color from being TOO dense in each spot. If this is unclear, I apologize. I'm not sure how else to word it. Feel free to leave comments if you have questions, and hopefully I can answer them to the best of my ability.