Create Colorful Easter Eggs Online and Off with Heinz Vinegar and PAAS {Review}

Along with the chocolate and the candy and the thrill of the egg hunts, dying Easter eggs is a tradition that I can remember back from my childhood. Is there anything more fun than dipping that clean, white egg into a cup of fizzing liquid and watching the hues immediately appear?

Unfortunately for my kids, my husband doesn't feel the same way and will do just about anything to get out of dying Easter eggs each year, often claiming that his aversion to the smell of hard-boiled eggs makes him exempt from the process. Sure, Honey. Whatever.

This year, however, there are no excuses. Because, with Easter just weeks away, it is now possible to have a great time decorating colorful eggs... while also contributing to a great cause! Thanks to the app to help you do just that and a fun line of egg decorating kits from PAAS and Heinz Vinegar.

What a perfect partnership! Heinz Vinegar and PAAS Easter Egg Dyeing Kits have collaborated to debut the Easter Egg Decorator iPad app, available both online via desktop or laptop computer as well as through iTunes.

This cute FREE app is a great way to let your kids virtually dye, decorate and share all sorts of ultra-vibrant Easter eggs without the mess. No having to lay out newspaper to cover the table or smell the hard-boiled eggs (assuming that's an issue with you as well), instead this gives the ability to select the colors, add paint, use glitter glue, decorate with chalk, and more.

But Heinz and PAAS didn't just create this app for entertainment, they've made it philanthropic as well. Now through March 31st, when you decorate and share a virtual Easter egg with family and friends, Heinz and PAAS will donate $1, up to $25,000, to Make-A-Wish. How great is that!

As much fun as Big Sister E and Little Sister B were having dying their virtual eggs, when an Easter basket of goodies from Heinz and PAAS arrived, they were more than ready to move on to the real thing.

We couldn't wait to unpack the new PAAS decorating kits, a bottle of Heinz Vinegar to help make colors vivid and bright, coupons, egg decorating tips and more!

While the girls dug into the jellybeans, I was sure to follow two great Easter Egg dying tips as I prepared our eggs and work area:

• To help keep hard-cooked eggs from cracking, add two tablespoons of Heinz Distilled White Vinegar per quart of water before placing the eggs in the pot. The shells will also peel off faster and easier when they're done. 

• For the brightest, most vivid colors, add one tablet and three tablespoons of Heinz Distilled White Vinegar to a PAAS Color Cup or a one-cup container. Once the tablet has dissolved, add ½ cup water and stir gently.

Then it was time to get decorating!

PAAS has been around for more than 130 years and, as far as I'm concerned, Easter isn't the same without them. This year, in addition to the other great products that they already had to help you turn your eggs into any number of cheerful colors and designs, they have introduced a variety of fun new egg decorating kits and accessories. A sample include:

• Volcano Eggsplosion: Drip melted crayon shavings over your eggs to provide instant color and beautiful, unique designs that are one-of-a-kind.

• Touch of Velvet: Including three different colors of easy-to-apply velvet, this kit uses double stick adhesives and flocking powder to create fun, fuzzy shapes on your Easter creations.

• Deggorating Doodles: Use the four food grade markers right on your egg's shell for the ultimate in creativity and design!

• Marble: Create marvelously marbled eggs as a powerful color twists into beautiful shapes, with a lighter, paler color beneath.

• Oh So Chic: Combining the sparkling glamour of rhinestones and the traditional fun of egg-dyeing, these glitzy pink and silver designs will turn your eggs into stylish pieces of art. 

• Egg Stampers: After dyeing your eggs, press these kid friendly stamps against the shells to add fun decorations!

We received the Touch of Velvet, Volcano Eggsplosion and Deggorating Doodles kits and the girls absolutely loved them! They were easily able to color with the Deggorating Doodle markers and thought that the fuzzy shapes from the Touch of Velvet kit were extremely cool.

It took a little more finagling to do the Volcano Eggsplosion kit, as we couldn't touch the hot eggs, but those ended up being really interesting — the kids loved seeing the crayon shavings melt right onto the eggs!

While I remember simply placing eggs into the dye and possibly using a white crayon for a little pizazz, PAAS has definitely come a long way over the years in making Easter egg dying a fun, imaginative, creative time for everyone.

Every year, Americans dye and decorate more than 180 million eggs during the Easter season, so be sure to do it right with Heinz and PAAS!

Heinz Distilled White Vinegar (approximately $1.34/16-ounce bottle and $1.99/32-ounce bottle) and PAAS egg decorating kits (approximately $4.25/each) can be found at most major grocery, drug and mass market stores near you. You can also find out more about these great brands at HeinzVinegar.com and PaasEasterEggs.com.

And don't forget to head over to HeinzPaasEaster.com to use the free Easter Egg Decorator App to have fun and to make a donation to Make-A-Wish!

I was provided free product samples for review by Heinz and PAAS in conjunction with my membership to Team Mom, however, all thoughts and opinions expressed are honest and my own.