More Than Decorations

Egg Friends
Eggs have a great shape for animal bodies and people faces. If you like animals, you might want to turn eggs into a zooful or a circusful of animals. Or, you could design an egg to be like your family cat, dog, gerbil or hamster.

Decorated eggs aren't just for Easter or springtime. For Mother's or Father's Day, you could make a special egg to look like your Mom or Dad. As a birthday present, you might plan an egg just like your brother, sister or best friend. Maybe you'd rather make your favorite movie, TV, music or computer-game star. You might even want to make a copy of you! In fact, in Japan, children are given eggs that look like them for a special celebration. To honor your own heritage, you could dress up an egg to look like you in a native costume.

For animal and people eggs, markers are easy to use to make face features and other markings but, if you're good with a brush, you might want to use paint. Tempera and fingerpaints are fine for eggs you want to eat. You can use acrylic and oil paints for eggs you want to keep. Lots of other things can be used to make an animal or person. Things used for the animals in the photo are:

Pig
Snout = tight curl of pipe cleaner
Tail = loose curl of pipe cleaner
Ears = construction paper

Lion
Mane = long triangles of tissue paper
Tail = braided yarn tied with a tissue-paper bow
Ears and whiskers = construction paper

Mouse
Ears = mini pom-poms
Whiskers = construction paper
Tail = pipe cleaner tied with cloth ribbon

Bunny
Ears, paws and whiskers = construction paper
Tail = cotton ball

Turtle
Feet and head = mini pom-poms
Tail = curled pipe cleaner
Eyes and mouth = construction paper

Cascarones

After the Dark Ages, the Renaissance was a time when people rediscovered learning. Art, music and the sciences thrived. During this romantic time, young Italian gentlemen filled empty eggshells with perfume or cologne. They tossed the eggs to women as a sign of their affection. This custom spread to Spain, France and Austria and then crossed the Atlantic. In Mexico, Carlotta was the wife of Emperor Maximillian. It's said that Carlotta filled empty eggshells with confetti instead of cologne. The confetti-filled eggs were used for Easter celebrations and other fiestas.

Today, children "bump" the delicate eggshells on the heads of family and friends and make a wish. If an eggshell breaks and the bumped person is covered with a shower of confetti, the wisher's wish is supposed to come true.

In the Spanish language, cascaron is the word for eggshell. There are many styles of cascarones made in Mexico today. Some are very simple, like the plain colored eggs in the first picture (we made these) and others are more fancy like the painted ones in the second picture (these were made in Mexico.) Sometimes, the decorated cascarones are put into paper cones.

To make cascarones, start with empty eggshells. Dye or decorate the shells any way you like. When your designs are dry, pour confetti into a small bowl. Use a small funnel and a small spoon (a baby feeding spoon is good, if you have one) to spoon confetti into the hole in each empty shell. You don't have to completely fill the eggs - a little confetti in each egg is just fine. When all the eggs are filled, glue a piece of tissue paper, gift-wrap paper or foil over each hole. Hint: if you set the eggs in an egg carton with the holes in the shells facing up, the confetti won't spill out while you're working with the eggs.

Eggshell Planters

Long ago, Bulgarian, Yugoslavian and Greek farmers would bury painted eggs in their fields at Eastertime to make their grapevines grow. The paint probably didn't help anything, but the calcium in the eggshells probably helped enrich the soil. That's one reason why eggshells make good containers for little plants. A second reason is that an eggshell is a good size to start out tiny seedlings. The third reason is that a dozen eggshell planters sitting in an egg carton fit nicely in a small place, like a windowsill.

To make eggshell planters, you don't need whole eggshells. You can use the halves of eggshells that were cracked for cooking or baking. Just be sure the eggshells are clean. Rinse the shell parts in very hot water or pour boiling water over them. Then, turn the shell parts upside down to drain. To dye the shells, you can use them still wet. If you want to paint faces on your shells, let them dry first. Put the faces on the eggs so that the plants will look like hair sprouting out the tops.

When your eggs are decorated, put the eggs back into their carton so they'll stand upright. Put a cotton ball in the bottom of each shell to collect water so the soil won't get too soggy. Spoon potting soil on top of the cotton. Then, add grass seeds to make a green-haired pal or add herb seeds to make a kitchen garden with a nice smell. Gently water the eggshell planters and put the cartonful of planters near sunlight. (See the seed package to find out exactly how much water and light your plants need.) If your plants grow really well and get too big for the eggshells, you can put them into bigger pots of soil - eggshell planters and all. Just crack the shells in a few places so the plants' roots can reach the new soil.