Naturally Dyed Tiffany Blue Easter Eggs

If you are still looking for an Easter Egg Hunt ideas, this article will inspire you to try something new. All you need is eggs, white vinegar, and purple cabbage. The whole project takes less than 12 hours. The outcome is more than amazing.

I used white free range organic eggs and an organic purple cabbage to minimize exposure to chemicals in our already over polluted world. This is especially important if you want to eat the eggs after the Sunday egg hunt.

For twelve eggs you will need a large head of purple cabbage, large pot, and twelve small Mason jars or small drinking glasses to dye each egg individually. You can dye the eggs in bulk, of course, but if you dye them individually, the eggs will be covered more thoroughly. 

Method:

• Wash and chop up the cabbage. Toss it into a large pot, pour enough water to completely cover the cabbage, and bring it to boil. Reduce the heat, cover the pot, and boil until cabbage is soft. 
• Once the cabbage is ready, allow it to cool off. Strain the liquid and toss away the cabbage. Add 4 Tbsp of vinegar and mix well.
• Boil the eggs. Put the eggs in a large pot and cover them with cold water. Bring water to a rolling boil. Once the water is boiling, remove the pot from heat and cover it with a lid. Leave the eggs in hot water for 12-15 minutes. Remove the eggs from the pot and put them into a bowl of ice cold water. 
• Place each egg in an individual jar or a glass. Pour the purple cabbage juice over the eggs completely covering each one, and allow eggs to take color for at least three hours. The color intensity depends on the time the eggs spend in the purple cabbage dye. To add some variation, let some of the eggs stay in the dye for a bit longer. For a more dramatic effect, leave them in dye overnight.
• Remove the eggs from the dye and place them on a baking cooling rack. Allow the dye to dry out completely. The little flaws in paint are more than welcome. They truly make the eggs prettier.
• Once the dye dried out completely you can place them in an Easter basket, on a decorative platter, or in your backyard. 

 Eggs in purple cabbage juice

This is the first time I used purple cabbage to dye the eggs. They turned out beautifully. No egg looks the same. I used a little 24ct confectioners gold leaf to add a little sparkle to them. You can use edible gold paint if you prefer, or simply leave them the way they are.

I hope this little project woke up your own creativity. You can use different plants to make the most beautiful Easter eggs ever. My mother used onion peel to create various shades of golden yellow and brown color. Purple cabbage gives various shades of aquamarine, Tiffany blue and turquoise. You can use beets to make your eggs pink, turmeric root to make them bright yellow, dried chokeberries (Aronia) to make them pink, or blueberries and blackberries to make them indigo blue. You can mix the plants to create different nuances. Also, using brown eggs instead of white will produce a much different color effect. Experiment! It's fun.

~ Wishing everyone peaceful Easter Holidays and happy Easter Egg Hunt! ~ Dominique 

 

Dominique Allmon©2018

Happy Easter!

The Easter Bunny came by today

and left surprises along his way.

Colorful eggs are all around.

With baskets in hand we search the ground.

Hiding in places here and there

Easter eggs are everywhere. 

Anonymous 

~ Happy Easter ~

Image: Easter Bunny & Broccoli by Dominique Teng©2017

Happy Easter!

There is a centuries-old Easter tradition of blessing the food in Poland that is practiced by most Poles and Catholics of Polish origin throughout the world. 

On the Holy Saturday - the day after Good Friday - Polish families prepare a baskets of victuals that are to be blessed by priests in parish churches.

The basket is usually lined with elaborately embroidered white linen napkin and decorated with sprigs of the ever green boxwood. Sometimes sprigs of pussy willows are also used to decorate not only the Easter basket, but also the table.

Food may vary from region to region, but most families would put naturally died Easter eggs, a chunk of sourdough bread, salt and pepper, a piece of smoked sausage, a piece of Easter cake, and an Easter lamb usually made of white sugar. Sometimes wine, vinegar and horse radish are also blessed.

The Easter holidays follow after a forty-day long period of fasting and self denial.  The suffering of Christ and his sacrifice, resurrection, renewal and gratitude are in the center of  Easter celebrations. 

Each item in the Easter basket has a symbolic meaning.  Easter egg, for instance, is an ancient symbol of fertility and new life. Bread and salt are the foods that sustain life. Wine symbolizes the blood of Christ. Vinegar, pepper, and horse radish represent the bitter "herbs" which foretold the Crucifixion. Meat symbolizes the resurrection and Christ's victory over death. The lamb is a symbol of the sacrificial Pascal lamb. The Easter cake symbolizes the end of fast. After a long period of Lent it is time to indulge and enjoy the life again. 

The baskets are blessed on Saturday and are usually placed on a table on Easter Sunday when families gather together to share the blessed food after the Easter Mass. 

Although death of Christ on the cross is by no means a joyful event, it has a very deep symbolic meaning. His passion, suffering and sacrifice lead to redemption of sins. This is itself is a reason for everlasting joy.  

Even if you are not religious, Easter is a time of new beginning. It is a time of forgiveness and joy, but also a time for deeper reflection on the meaning of life.

Wishing everyone happy and peaceful Easter Holidays - Dominique

Image source here

Madness!

Not an Easter Bunny!

A few months ago when I was writing an article in defense of the Christmas tree a thought occurred to me that the Easter was actually spared all the controversy that Christmas was facing in America. Were they going to outlaw the Easter egg as well? Was the Easter egg to become a Spring egg or a holiday egg or something of that sort?

Sooner than I could even envision an organized anti-Easter campaign a principal of the Heritage Elementary School in Madison, Alabama has banned the use of the word Easter in her school insisting that calling a bunny an Easter bunny or an egg an Easter egg infringed on the rights of others. The Principal Lydia Davenport explained the move, saying, “Kids love the bunny and we just try to make sure that we don’t say the ‘Easter Bunny’ so that we don’t infringe on the rights of others, because people relate the Easter bunny to religion.” Pure idiocy! 

And if this does not make you scream I don't know what does. But things can really get much nastier than that. 

In Florida an university professor, Dr. Deandre Poole who teaches Intercultural Communications, makes students stomp on Jesus. During his class students were instructed to write the word "Jesus" on a piece of paper and then place it on the floor and stomp on it. When one student refused to do it because he considered the assignment insulting and offensive, he got suspended from the class. 

The stomping activity was part of a suggested exercise found in the instructor’s manual accompanying the classroom textbook. The exercise was devised to teach students the importance of symbols in culture so why all the big fuss over it. But wait. What if the students were asked to write "Allah" or "Mohamed" on a piece of paper and then stomp on it? Can you imagine the outrage that would have spread around the world if a word of it got out?

Dr. Poole did not pick up the word "Allah" for his exercise because he was smart enough to understand that every Muslim cleric around the world would have declared a fatwa against him. This would have meant an end of his career as he would have had to go into hiding if he wanted to stay alive.

The voices against Christians and their rituals are becoming louder and louder in America and I really wonder why. This phenomenon is unknown in Europe.

Why do progressives of this world think that it is all right to insult Christians, but show utmost sensitivity and respect to other religions at the same time?

Are Christians an easy target because they do not behead artists who immerse crucifixes in their own urine?

Normally, the Christians' bashing goes unnoticed, but this time Florida Governor Mr. Rick Scott demanded a formal investigation into this matter. 

For all we know symbols may be quite arbitrary, but they assume very strong, emotional meaning for those who know how to read them.  

I will leave you here to reflect on the state of society we are living in.

By Dominique Teng

Happy Easter!

Easter Eggs

When Easter time had come again

With Easter eggs to dye,

We chose to paint our eggs with thoughts

Of those who would be nigh.

For dad we chose a purple shade

Which stands for royalty,

For he is head within the home

And pledged to family.

For mom we chose a yellow shade

so bright and sunshine warm,

She is the heart within the home

She shelters us from harm.

My sister's egg was pastel pink,

So feminine and gay,

The shade of ribbons and of lace

And apple bloom in May.

Much like the nearby meadowed hills,

My egg was dyed a green,

For boys just love to romp outdoors

When spring is on the scene.

Our grandma's shade was lilac soft,

And grandpa's shade was blue,

For soft and gentle hues just fit

These fond and loving two.

When all our eggs had been prepared,

How beautiful they were!

We found we'd painted them to love

This special time of year.

By Craig E. Sathoff

Why paint eggs when nature has already done such a magnificent job already?

Happy Easter!

Upper image by Gillian Woods

Image source here

Happy Easter

Easter eggs are specially decorated eggs given out to celebrate the Easter holiday or springtime. Eggs and Easter have become almost synonymous and yet most people do not know much about the origins of the Easter egg tradition.

It is the influence of the traditional spring rites that made Easter so special. And myths coming down to us from an incredibly distant past have shown man's relationship with the egg to be very deep seated one. This is caught in old Latin proverb: "Omne vivum ex ovo". This means "all life comes from an egg". Not just the Latin saying, eggs are just laid well over all corners of the world. From ancient India to Polynesia, from Iran, Greece, and Phoenicia to Poland, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland, from Central America to the west coast of South America, there are reports of myths of the whole universe created out of an egg. Thus, it is not unusual that in almost all ancient cultures eggs had been held as an emblem of life. The concept of all living beings born from an egg is also a foundational concept of modern biology. 

Despite claims being made that Easter Eggs were originally pagan symbols, there is no solid evidence for this. It was not until the 18th Century that Jakob Grimm theorised a putative pagan connection to Easter Eggs with a goddess of his own whom he named Ostara, a suggested German version of Eostre.

At the Passover Seder, a hard-boiled egg dipped in salt water symbolizes both new life and the Passover sacrifice offered at the Temple in Jerusalem. The ancient Persians painted eggs for Nowrooz, their New Year celebration falling on the Spring Equinox. This tradition has continued every year on Nowrooz since ancient times.

In Christian times, the egg was a symbol of new life just as a chick might hatch from the egg. The Easter egg tradition may have celebrated the end of the privations of Lent. In the Medieval Europe, eggs were forbidden during Lent as well as other traditional fast days. During the strict Lenten fast of forty days no eggs were eaten. It was traditional to use up all of the household's eggs before Lent began, which established the tradition of Pancake Day. This was because, in Christian times, the egg was a symbol of new life just as a chick might hatch from the egg. Eggs were viewed as symbols of new life and fertility through the ages. It is believed that for this reason many ancient cultures, including the Ancient Egyptians, Persians, and Romans, used eggs during their spring festivals. In Eastern Christianity, both meat and dairy are still prohibited during the fast, and eggs are seen as "dairy" (a foodstuff that could be taken from an animal without shedding its blood). That is the reason why eggs laid during that time were often boiled or otherwise preserved. 

It was at the end of Lent, during Easter that the consumption of eggs resumed after the strict Lenten fast. Eggs were thus a mainstay of Easter meals, and a prized Easter gift for children and servants. And this is probably the reason why eggs came to be associated with Easter.

Many traditions and practices have formed around Easter eggs. In Europe an egg was hung on New Year trees, on Maypoles, and on St. John's trees in midsummer. Indeed, all were of one accord in using the egg as a symbol of the regenerative forces of nature. Later during the Christian period, it was believed that eggs laid on Good Friday, if kept for a hundred years, would have their yolks turn to diamond. If Good Friday eggs were cooked on Easter they would promote the fertility of the trees and crops and protect against sudden deaths. And, if you would find two yolks in an Easter egg, be sure, you're going to be rich soon. That's what they believed!

An Orthodox tradition related with Easter celebrations is the presenting of red colored eggs to friends while giving Easter greetings. According to a History channel documentary about Mary Magdalene and her role in Christianity, the custom derives from a biblical event. After the Ascension of Christ, Mary supposedly went to the Emperor of Rome and greeted him with "Christ is risen", whereupon he stated, "Christ has not risen no more than that egg is red" (pointing to an egg on his table). After making this statement it is said the egg immediately turned blood red.[citation needed] She then began preaching Christianity to him. The egg is symbolic of the grave and life renewed by breaking out of it. The red symbolizes the blood of Christ redeeming the world, represented by the egg, and our regeneration through the bloodshed for us by Christ. The egg itself is a symbol of the Resurrection while being dormant it contains a new life sealed within it.

The coloring of eggs is a established art, and eggs are often dyed, painted, and otherwise decorated. Eggs were also used in various holiday games: parents would hide eggs for children to find, and children would roll eggs down hills. These practices live on in Easter egg hunts and egg rolls. The most famous egg roll takes place on the White House lawn every year.

P.S.

Contrary to popular belief, Easter does not represent the “historical” crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In reality, the gospel tale reflects the annual “crossification” of the sun through the vernal equinox (Spring), at which time the sun is “resurrected,” as the day begins to become longer than the night.

Rather than being a “Christian” holiday, Easter celebrations date back into remotest antiquity and are found around the world, as the blossoming of spring did not escape the notice of the ancients, who revered this life-renewing time of the year, when winter had passed and the sun was “born again.” The “Pagan” Easter is also the Passover, and Jesus Christ represents not only the sun but also the Passover Lamb ritually sacrificed every year by a number of cultures, including the Egyptians, possibly as early as 4,000 years ago and continuing to this day in some places.

Article source here

Image source unknown but greatly appreciated