Now you have me thinking Vic - how we did our paste eggs?
My memory says our mam would boil the ones to be used for japping with the brown outer skins of onions making the egg shell stain a patchy brown.
On half of the eggs to be boiled for japping my dad was allowed to put designs on them by using a candle. He would draw out a pattern, with the candle, on the egg shell and the egg would then be wrapped with the onion skins, secured onto the egg with cord/twine, and then the egg boiled. When the onion skins were removed, after boiling, the wax from the candle had protected the onion skins from staining the pattern that had been drawn with the candle.
We all had one hardboiled egg to paint = competition and the winners egg was kept on display for months, or until one of the loosing children accidently😇 knocked the winning egg over and cracked the shell.
Being the youngest of the 3 lads my head was a place where the other two would crack open a hard boiled egg😬