At Easter time, eggs are handled a great deal more than usual especially when decorating or hiding the eggs in an Easter egg hunt. So, before you begin to decorate your eggs, remember to follow some important safety methods when handling eggs for cooking, decorating or for the Easter egg hunt:

• Make sure you wash your hands thoroughly with hot soapy water and rinse well before handling the eggs at every step including cooking, cooling, dyeing, and hiding them.

• You should be sure and inspect the eggs before purchasing them, making sure they are not dirty or cracked. Dangerous bacteria may enter a cracked egg.

• Store eggs in their original cartons in the refrigerator even after decorating.

• When hiding eggs, consider hiding places carefully. Avoid areas where the eggs might come into contact with pets, wild animals, birds, reptiles, insects, or lawn chemicals.

• Refrigerate your eggs again after they've been hidden and found.

• Discard cracked eggs or eggs that have been out of refrigeration for more than two hours.

• Make sure you find all the eggs you've hidden to eliminate the chances of animals eating spoiled eggs.

Many Easter eggs are decorated using hard-cooked eggs. For the perfect hard-cooked egg, follow these directions. Try to buy your eggs a week or two in advance. Eggs that have been stored in the refrigerator for a week or two will usually peel easily. The fresher the egg, the harder it is to peel.

Whether hard- or soft-cooked, this method is incorrectly called boiled eggs. Although the cooking water must come to a boil, eggs should not be boiled because high temperatures make them tough and rubbery. Place eggs in a single layer in a saucepan. Add enough water to come at least one inch above the eggs. Cover and quickly bring just to a boil. Remove pan from heat and let eggs stand 15 minutes. (Adjust the time up or down by about three minutes for each size larger or smaller). Immediately run cold water over the eggs until cool.

A greenish-gray ring may appear around a hard-cooked egg yolk. It's unsightly, but harmless. The ring is caused by a chemical reaction involving sulfur (from the egg white) and iron (from the egg yolk), which naturally react to form ferrous sulfide at the surface of the yolk. The reaction is usually caused by overcooking, but can also be caused by a high amount of iron in the cooking water.

Eliminate the ring by avoiding overcooking and by cooling the eggs quickly after cooking. Run cold water over the just-cooked eggs or place them in ice water (not standing water) until they have completely cooled. Then refrigerate the eggs in their shells until you're ready to use them. Hard-cooked eggs in the shell can be refrigerated up to one week.

When eggs are cool, tap the egg on a hard surface. Thoroughly crackle the shell and roll the egg between your hands to loosen the shell. Start at the large end and peel.

Eggs can be decorated in a variety of ways. For a personal touch on decorating, use wax crayons, magic markers, or paints on your eggshell to create your own design; then coat it with clear nail polish to prevent smearing. To make the shell glisten, use pearl-colored nail polish. For a porcelain finish, apply several coats of diluted school glue.

There is literally no end to the creative possibilities for individual expression on an eggshell. Eggs can be painted or colored with crayons or felt-tipped pens, turned into funny faces, topped with fantastic hats, trimmed with feathers or sequins, or simply dyed in an endless variety of hues. However, you decide to do it, decorating eggs is fun for grown-ups as well as for kids.

You can also decorate your eggs by using natural dyes made from items you may already have in your refrigerator such as beets, spinach leaves, cranberries, blueberries, red cabbage, just to name a few of the possibilities.

Ever See a Plaid Egg?
How about a plaid egg, or a striped one? Just wrap eggs with rubber bands or strips of narrow masking tape before placing them in the dye. Be sure the egg is completely dry before removing the bands.

You can decorate eggs any time of year, with any kind of design you like. Professional artists have used eggs to represent the states. If you don't want to make an egg for your state, you could decorate one in red, white, and blue for the Fourth of July. Or, how about making an egg person into a pilgrim for Thanksgiving? To make a decorated egg to hang on a mobile, Easter tree or Christmas tree, use a lightweight emptied eggshell.

You can also use decorated eggs as a craft project, as a table favor, or "name card" at a birthday party. Or, maybe you might like to start a family tradition by making a special egg for Mom or Dad for Mother's or Father's Day. As you grow up and your talents grow, too, the eggs will probably get better and better every year!