Friday, March 21, 2008

Eco Easter Excitement

Hey, peeps! Are you bristling with excitement about Sunday's highly-anticipated diorama unveilings? Did you make the mistake of eating some of your supplies? Need to recover from the dye-and-preservative overload?! Check out the following ideas for natural Easter egg dyes and decorations:

I so totally want to do this next year (note to self -- must start at least one week ahead of time if not two): wheatgrass for the Easter basket. (via Ecobites)

To eat: hard-boiled "ruby eggs" -- they're dyed with beet juice and look lovely. You need to let them soak overnight and you only need the juice, so I'm thinking I will make beets tomorrow with extra water and then have simple beet salad around (olive oil, sea salt, and lemon) with the purply eggs. Mmmmm. (ruby eggs via A Veggie Venture)

To go in the basket: fresh spring vegetables. Gotta hit the Saturday farmer's market 'cause the big bunny comes early on Sunday. We've done this from the get-go, so my daughter associates Easter with both chocolate (from her grandparents) and fresh spring nibblings. Such a time of renewal, with fertility eggs and tender shoots.

And, I have to say I haven't tried the natural food dye ideas out yet but found a great post just this morning warning me that beet juice (my old standby!) doesn't dye the egg shells. Whoa, nelly, serendipitous timing! (via Slow Life France)

Here are other links I have collected on enviro Easter -- hope they help you play around with nontoxic color and green rabbiting this weekend:



6 comments:

Sarita said...

I was going to link you to Riana's blog - glad you found it!

Great ideas! I want to share a more American easter with my students but I don't like the idea of so much waste. So I'm off to check out your links!

And here is one for you: I thought these candles made inside of an eggshell were really adorable. What do you think?


http://www.flickr.com/photos/hippyhappyhay/2347539476/

JessTrev said...

ooh, i love those candles! and reusing the inevitable eggshell surplus = ingenious! yes, I followed your link to Riana's blog and am so grateful. thanks Sarita!

Mrs. Gray's Class said...

Thanks for the link - love your blog. I'll be back.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the mention, and the link:)

Laura/CenterDownHome said...

Oh! You know, I was really lukewarm on Easter this year. We didn't dye any eggs. The boys and their younger cousins raced around the trail gathering plastic candy-filled eggs, with more enthusiasm for the trail race than for the plastic eggs. But I missed the prettiness, the fresh springtime feeling of seeing a smooth blue or pink egg in the green grass. Maybe I needed to miss it to want to dye them next year. I'll make a note to self to check your page and links for next Easter's egg dying.

Did you see Ronnie's post of the egg-dyeing party they had? Pretty. :)

http://zombieprincess.blogspot.com/2008/03/happy-spring-celebration.html

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the shout-out re my Green Easter post.

And re Gray Matters, did you know she just had a baby? So cute...a head full of hair (just like my baby boys...sigh!)

You can check out a pic on her site.