New Experience #14: Decorate a Dozen Easter Eggs Myself!

Searching for Easter Bunny treats was my favourite part of Easter when I was little. (Yes, I was raised in a Christian home, but when you’re eight years old, the joy of Jesus’ resurrection does not compete with the excitment of going on a hunt for mini chocolate eggs and pink hair accessories – just being honest with you).

My SECOND favourite part of Easter was our family tradition of dying Easter eggs. This process would take place annually on Good Friday. (Then Saturday was always Paska baking day – more on that tomorrow).

For dying our Easter eggs, Dad, Mom, The Brother and I would each get 3, 4 or 6 eggs to creatively colour.

Sometimes during the hard-boiling, an egg would crack. If that was the case, Mom got stuck with having the defective egg as part of her collection. That’s just the way it was.

I always crackled with anticipation over how to decorate my eggs: no plain, one-colour jobs, for me! (That was Mom’s way of doing eggs – she said she had to balance out our craziness brightness with solids).

My area of specialty was using Rubber Cement glue. I’d dye my egg, drizzle the glue around it, plop it back in another colour and let it soak. When you took out the egg, and rubbed off the glue, you’d be left with a two-toned psychedelic masterpiece!

The Brother’s gift was drawing on the eggs. His best invention, to this day, is the year he crafted the Van Halen symbol onto the egg’s surface.

(source)

Unmatchable. We still laugh to this day over that one.

This year, I have misplaced my Easter decorations, which is very unlike me. 

I have no clue where my little eggie tree, fake nest and multitude of cute bunnies have disappeared to. So, to brighten and spring-ify the still winterlike Condo Casa, I decided to resurrect the Egg Dying Tradition of Yore. In order to make this a New Experience, I settled upon dying an even dozen eggs. Never have I had so many all to myself!

Last night was Preparation Time:

I bought a dozen of the cheapest eggs I could find, since these are going to sit out for a week as decoration, and will not be consumed. A $2 investment for this year’s Easter decor? Fine by me!

Boil, boil, toil and trouble! Luckily, zero eggs cracked!

Same brand of dye we used in the ’70s…but now you get added extras!…

This morning, I mixed up my dyes:

Despite the passage of time, I still remembered some of my favourite tricks!

For my 12th egg, I created the Swamp Water Mix – you just dump all the dyes together, and douse the egg! (Another tradition The Brother and I revelled in!).

To finish, I rubbed the eggs with oil. This was always a Dad task. It just shines up the eggs to make them Display Worthy:

Care to see the finished products?

Four plain eggs (in honour of Mom) to act as balancing agents:

Oops! One casualty…we’ll just hide that side…

Four pastel-hued eggs, each of which received turnings and dunkings, by hand:

Three stickered eggs. I love stickers. Usually I use Little E and Baby C as my excuses to play with stickers. I justify my sticker-usage today by saying that the stickers were included with the dyes, so it’s only proper that I use them!

One with a strip of Easter eggs, one with flowers ‘n’ butterflies…

And just for The Brother, a Funny/Sporty Egg (why basketballs, firetrucks and shooting rockets for Easter?!):

Here’s the Swamp Water Egg!

My favourite today? This one (the white stripe down the middle happened accidentally – love it!):

And the final collection:

Now my dining room table looks Easter-y!

Happy Earth Day, by the way!

Are you dying Easter eggs this year?

Are you celebrating Earth Day today?

Tomorrow we talk Easter Bread!