Natural Easter egg dye ()
Homemade Easter crafts truly embrace the season of nature's rebirth. Here are six craft projects built around using nature’s bounty and natural products. These promise as much joy in the making as there is in beholding.
Springtime wreaths: Your front door has been lonely since the winter holidays. Time to use it as a showpiece for the glory of nature in full blossom. First, find twigs or vines with enough flexibility to allow them to be wrapped around the frame. Some types of straw or ivy can work for this too. Next adorn it with branches, feathers or other items discovered on a nature walk (these are still on the table for some of us). Add finishing flourishes in the form of budding branches or blossoms. When these wilt, pluck them off and replace them with fresh flowers.
Color your Easter eggs the natural way: You don’t need any commercially bought colorants to produce a beautiful pastel-hued batch of eggs. Boiling eggs with vinegar and the brown outer skins of an onion produces a pretty orange hue; beets turn eggs a rosy pink, red cabbage makes sky blue, coffee brings about brown, spinach results in green and turmeric produces yellow.
Egg tree: Make like a German and create your very own Ostereierbaum. If you don’t have a tree, or even a yard for that matter, no problem: Just gather several bare branches, preferably with lots of sprigs, and place in a large vase. Tie homemade, decorated eggs onto it with pretty ribbons, yarn or string.
Blown Eggs: The best option for your egg tree are decorated and hollowed-out eggs. This time-honored tradition allows you to display and preserve your prettiest eggs for years to come. Prick the ends of raw eggs, and blow!
Blooming Easter egg: This cute craft is super easy to execute. When cracking open an egg, try to do so in a way that only damages the upper third of its shell. Wash the preserved shell inside and out with soap and water and allow it to dry. Prick a tiny hole in the bottom of the shell. Decorating is optional but if you do, it’s best to stick to all-natural products. Using a spoon, put potting soil into the egg and plant it with seeds of your favorite herbs. For added cuteness, you could place your eggs on a bed of moss or grass. Once the sprouts have shot up, plant egg and all into a window box, and voila- there’s your herb garden for the season. The eggshell will compost naturally into the soil.
Weave a whip from willows: A traditional element of Czech or Slovakian Easter is a braided switch, known as a pomlázka or korbáč in the respective languages. On Easter Monday, according to custom, boys would chase girls and swat them with these whips, part of a ritual said to endow the female sex with health, beauty and fertility. Without the whipping, these woven branches adorned with colorful ribbons make a pretty decoration. Weaving these switches is something of a lost art these days, but those with patience and time on their hands might find transforming nine or ten willow branches into this symbol of Easter a fun challenge.
