Easter is tomorrow morning and the eggs are just about finished. Traditionally, we colour real eggs rather than have loads of chocolate ones. Chocolate eggs do sneak in here and there: Easter bunnies are in just about every shop you enter.

Decorated Easter eggs are a tradition throughout Europe, though Ukrainian Easter eggs are the most famous. I’ve done some simplified decorated Easter eggs using traditional methods.

The Easter egg above has been made using beeswax and an old fashion quill pen. I heat the tip of the quill pen on a candle flame, dip it in a solid piece of beeswax and draw on the already hardboiled egg (use free range or organic eggs). Everything has to be done quickly as the wax cools down quickly. Once finished with the drawings, the eggs are coloured. Here I used onion skin to colour these (see instructions), however, not in boiling, but in warm water so the wax doesn’t melt.

Once you are happy with the colour depth, the egg is dried, then heated on the candle flame till the beeswax melts. The melted wax is wiped off with a soft cloth or paper towel. Put a little oil for a nice shine. Ta-da: the all natural and sustainably decorated Easter eggs are done!

Have a Happy and Sustainable Easter!

Make your Easter a bit greener and more sustainable by colouring the eggs naturally.  Brown Easter eggs are my favourite for two reasons:

1. the colour is natural and so simple to make,
2. brown is strong enough for our chickens’ brown eggs.

Here in Australia,  I rarely see white eggs.  Our chickens’ eggs range from cream to medium brown.  Singapore, our black chicken lays the lightest coloured eggs – she is very popular around Easter time .

How to Colour Easter Eggs Naturally

Here are step by step instructions with photos for colouring your Easter eggs naturally.

You need:

• hard boiled eggs
• old stockings, washed preferably , cut into several 15 cm (6 inches) pieces
• lots of brown onion skin (outer layer only)
• large pot
• herb leaves like parsley

Instructions:

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil together with the onion skin.  Boil for about 10 min.

2. Place a chosen leaf face down on the egg.

3. Tie a knot on one end of the stocking, carefully put the egg and tie the other end.

4. Stocking should be very tight to press the leaf so no colour gets under it.

5. Place the eggs into the pot with onion skin in it. The water doesn’t need to boil, but should be hot.

6. Leave the egg in the onion water for at least 5 min or longer depending on the colour of the egg and desired colour depth.  Check after a few minutes.

7. Once happy with the colour, take the egg out, cut the knot with the scissors, remove stocking and the leaf and let it dry.

8. Rub some oil to give the egg nice shine.

These eggs are safe for eating.  Happy colouring!

Do you have a natural egg colouring method you would like to share?  Please do so using the comment form below!

Seeing all the chocolate Easter bunnies and eggs immediately after Christmas made me instinctively block anything to do with Easter till recently.   Now that there are less than three weeks left, I can put my guard down.

My first post on the Easter theme is this simple floral centrepiece.  No, I’m not soooo organised this year, this photo is from previous Easter .

Instructions

You’ll need:

• container
• wet floral foam
• glass or jar
• grass with roots
• flowers, cut or potted
• coloured eggs

1. For a start, you need a container of any size and shape you like.  I chose a rectangular stainless steel box.
2. Soak a piece of wet floral foam in water and place it on one side.  If your container isn’t waterproof, put the foam into a plastic bag and secure sides with a rubber band leaving the top free.
3. In the other corner put a glass or jar for your flowers.
4. Take a bunch of grass together with roots from your garden, mondo grass from the nursery or any other living grass or plant you wish and place it on top of the floral foam.  Water it regularly.
5. Place the flowers in the glass or jar filled with water.  You can use potted flowers instead.  Tulips are my preferred Easter flowers.
6. To finish, place a few coloured Easter eggs on the grass.  And this cute wooden ladybird made a great finishing touch.

This gorgeous Easter centrepiece is really easy to make and will last for several weeks!

Easter is just around the corner and it’s time to start some planning (I should say it’s the last minute to do so).  If you are celebrating Easter, think about how to green your Easter celebrations this year.

Here are some of things we do at our place:

• Number one: we limit the quantity of chocolate Easter eggs (at least at home)!  Kids really want the Easter egg hunt, however by Easter they have eaten too many at school and kinder.  So we hide about 3-4 small ones per child.  And we rarely buy any chocolate eggs as they keep coming from school, friends and neighbours. When buying chocolate Easter eggs, it’s best to find the smallest eggs, ideally hollow ones that have least chocolate in them.  Organic and fair-trade Easter eggs are now available.  Skip huge Easter bunnies and eggs with lots of packaging.

• At school and kinder our kids make Easter egg baskets form paper or recycled plastic tubs filled with shredded paper.  Refuse bought plastic basket with fake plastic grass.

• We boil and decorate real eggs.  Now that our chickens are laying we have our own fresh eggs.  Usually I boil them with the onion skin for lovely and natural colour:

• We bake the hot cross buns, make Easter cookies and generally all food for the celebration is homemade.

• Easter decoration is arriving on a daily basis form kinder in form of different paintings and paper craft – so I don’t have to worry about that task

• Decorated blown eggs:  we have a set made 5 years ago and still using it.  Simply, make two holes with a wooden skewer and blow the egg out using a straw.  Then rinse, dry and decorate.  You can hang them on some branches (see below), arrange them in a bowl or use them as a simple table decoration.

Here are just some of ideas for greener Easter.

Would you like to share your tips for eco friendly Easter? Please do so in the comments below.