DECORATING EGGS FOR EASTER

 WE DEFINITELY DID NOT PUT ALL OUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET

When I was little Easter was almost as exciting as Christmas.  Besides getting a new suit and shoes for church there was always an Easter basket filled with jellybeans, chocolate eggs, some little toys and a big chocolate bunny.  But the highlight of Easter was the egg hunt and of course the dying and decorating of eggs.

As an adult I have carried on the tradition of decorating eggs even before our daughter  was born.  Of course as my aesthetic taste grew more sophisticated so did my method of egg decorating.  My need to scour books and websites for new ways to dye an egg are now legendary among my family and friend. I've enlisted them every year for the entire week before Easter experimenting with new techniques I've found from a whole flock of Marthas. Following are just a few techniques I've tried with the help of my partner, our daughter and anyone else I could "Tom Sawyer" into helping me.  Many came with a lot of "trial and error"!

I love the idea of dying eggs with   natural ingredients.  In much of my interior designs I like the idea of a monochromatic color scheme. On one of my most successful years I took both white and brown eggs for variety and colored them using turmeric. When I paired them with bright yellow daffodils I had picked up at the local supermarket I ended up with one of most satisfying table centerpieces I had ever done. This was a very easy dying technique since all you had to do was dissolve ground turmeric in the same water you used to boil the eggs. Let it sit overnight and it's done. I love the result.

Here's a list of some other natural dying agents you can use and the color result you can expect from the dying process

Cranberries = pale purple

Raspberries = lavender

Pomegranates = light red

Beets = pale pink

Spinach = pale green

Turmeric = bright yellow

Red cabbage = dark blue

Coffee grounds = dark brown

Onion skins = sepia

Blueberries = blue to purple

Along with the natural coloring method I've experimented over the years using different small leaves such as parsley and carrot tops. What you get is a beautiful impression of the leaves pressed into the eggs. The results look much like a sun print.

Here's the method.  Prep is pretty simple. First cut up panty hose into four-inch squares. Then prepare your dying agent. This can be any of the agents I listed above. Next pinch some leaves or stalks from plants with a small enough shape to show up on an egg. In separate pots dump your dying agents with a mixture of water and vinegar in a ratio of three parts water to one part vinegar. Then bring the pot to a boil.

While waiting for the water to boil start placing some leaves you've pinched on the cut squares of panty hose. We each added our own artistic touch but it was Emmy's use of oregano spears that seemed to produce the best results. After the leaves are in place gently lay the eggs down on the leaf and panty hose blankets, pull the hose up tight around the eggs, twist and seal the little Easter packages with a rubber band.

The next step in our egg bondage routine is to cut off the excess nylon leaving the eggs looking like a band of comic bank robbers.

Finally drop the eggs into the pots and let them sit for a couple of minutes in the bubbling mixture. The denser the amount of dying agent and the longer the time left in the dye the more intense the colors. I, of course, reserve approval on all work and not until I am fully satisfied that the look I am aiming for will be attained will I allow my helpers to turn the heat off and cover the pots of the newly tattooed eggs.

We left the eggs sit over night and when we woke in the morning we cut off the hose releasing our eggs from their bondage and blotted the them dry. The result was some of the most beautiful Easter eggs our home has ever seen.

Being inspired by the luxe of Fabrege Eggs but not having any jewels to encrust my eggs I tried my hand at gold and copper leafing them.  First I gave them a light coloring in a red cabbage bath,

next I coated them with a light coat of spray mount (technically I should have used sizing but I couldn't find any so I called my expert, Rick Jordan and he approved the spray mount method) and finally I applied the leaf and rubbed to finish.

This year's trickiest challenge in dying techniques was not so successful on the first go round.  It required crinkling and wrapping multiple layers of colored tissue paper topped with a coffee filter around an egg, dipping it in vinegar and leaving it to dry overnight.

Hmm, not so good.  One thing, well maybe the only thing I learned from my college chemistry lab, written in giant letters all the way around the room was WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, READ THE DIRECTIONS.  Following that advice I learned I needed to use "bleeding" tissue paper.

Who knew there was more than one kind?  So onto Amazon to find the proper kind of paper and back to square one.  Wrap, repeat vinegar bath and overnight drying. 

Ta-da!

And Emmy and Lee had their favorites

After all these machinations and self congratulations Emmy asked if I had seen Lee's sister Bonnie's silk tie dyed eggs on Facebook?  The bitch showed me up! 

THE GALLERY

Putin's $14 Million Faberge Egg, photographed by Shaun Curry, 2007, Getty Images