The decorated dozen: Here are 12 easy ways to jazz up Easter

It's time to start dipping, dyeing and getting food coloring under your fingernails.

Decorating Easter eggs offers a few hours of affordable family fun. A dozen eggs will cost you around $2, and so will a basic egg-coloring kit.

You can also use the food coloring you have sitting in your cupboard, but you won't get one of those little wire egg holders to lift your eggs out of the dye.

A hard-cooked egg is a blank canvas waiting for creativity.

Here are some budget-minded ideas, using many items that you likely have lying around the house.

These are kid-friendly; you don't have to channel Martha Stewart or even own a glue gun. And there are no "mistakes." If something doesn't turn out the way you thought it would, no problem. Just consider it a different "effect."

Before you begin, take some precautions, and remember that food coloring stains other things besides eggs.

Don't use your best teacups to hold the egg dye. Wear old clothing or an apron, and use an old plastic tablecloth.

If you do have some drips or spills, regular shaving cream can help get them out.

1. Rubber band. Place rubber bands around the eggs before dipping them into the dye. This works best with wide bands, such as the blue grocery store ones that hold bunches of parsley or cilantro.

2. Tape strips. Stick squares or strips of tape on random spots around the egg before dipping. You can also dye one color and allow the egg to dry before taping and dipping into another color.

3. Newspaper comics. Clip your favorite color comics and glue them around a colored eggs.

4. The spice is right. Raid your spice cabinet for old spices that need to be used up. In the Deseret News test kitchen, we steeped 1 tablespoon of turmeric in a cup of boiling water for an hour, then set the eggs in the mixture to give them a deep yellow-gold hue. Our efforts with paprika, however, weren't successful. You'll have to experiment a little with the spices you have.

5. Polish it off. Dot the egg with those too-bright reds, too-pale pastels, or too-wild blue and purple fingernail enamels that you no longer want to wear. Allow the eggs to dry before dipping in the dye.