Easter eggs

It's the custom to paint eggs red on this day.
So I woke up early to finish other things and then paint my eggs in my own way, quietly and hoping that they will look good.It always causes me stress if the red ones will be nice red ones and not too dark or with white spots.
Anyway I hang a red teatowel outside, that's a custom too, to show you are painting red eggs.

 First I slowly hard boiled my eggs.I let them cool.

 Then I dipped them into water,vinegar and red paint for Easter eggs for 5 minutes.

 Yes, they are ok!Great! Here they are inside my second ceramic bowl with Georgia Ahtida's egg in the middle.

And here's my bowl in the middle of the lovely fabric strip wreath Angeliki of Poco Loco made for me!

 And here's my minimalistic Easter decoration. My ceramic bowls, red eggs, Ahtida's egg, ceramic eggs (store bought years ago), a Hama bead butterfly (I will tell you about it in a future blogpost), and the little bunny I got from the Secret Bunny Exchange from Athena (organized by Zina).

I left a couple of eggs unpainted wanting to try some decoupage techniques I recently learnt at the Fiaxto workshop at IKEA.
I used an IKEA napkin, and white glue dilluted in water.

 I took off the white sheets from the napkin and was left with only the top sheet.I cut it in small pieces. I applied some glue on the eggs and stick the napkin and apply some more glue. Let dry well.

 The two eggs are covered in only one layer and therefore the colour of the eggs shows from underneath leaving a blue and beige colour combination. I also tried with more layers and had the blue and white  colour result but the texture of the egg surface isn't as good. Also I realised I should have cut the napkin in smaller pieces.

 Do you paint eggs for Easter?What kind did you do this year?

Decorating for Easter!

Our Easter, the Greek Christian Orthodox Easter is a week later than the Catholic Easter this year.
So yesterday I did the usual customs.
First I put some order on the big table that I decorate.

 I arranged all of my green vases on the one side and all of my red ones on the other side.And in the middle my white things.My mum's Easter handembroidery on the table.

Then I decided to add some branches in one of the vases and add some flowers too.
I took the paper from a recent parcel and cut the beautiful flowers and stuck them on the branches.

 I added a couple of knitted birds I bought from the Melissa Orphanage bazaar.

Then I added the sweet basket with the eggs that my dear Georgia (aka Ahtida) of Egina 62, e kai? blog gave me.

Then I dyed my own eggs. I wanted to try a tutorial I had seen on the internet.
I cut some old silk scarves my mum gave me.

 I wrapped them around my eggs.

 I wrapped some white cotton all around them.

 And boiled them the usual way in a pan with water and vinegar.

 Unfortunately not all colours were good enough.

 I dyed the rest of the eggs red.

 And here's how they all look.

I also decorated with the rest of my eggs.The animals I had made with my son when he was five.

 A collection from several gifted to me, or made by me or bought from abroad.

 Finally added a few recent etsy shop purchases about which I will talk in the next post along with some cards I received and my Prague eggs on the red metal tree.

 My Easter candle is waiting for me to use it on the Ressurection night at church made by sweet Georgia again.The cross stitched sampler I brought from the States and it was a gift by dear Marabeth.

 And there is all of my Easter decoration.

I also made some Easter bread (tsourekia).
They don't look very good but hopefully they taste good.It was the first time I made them!

I wish you all to have a happy Easter and those of you who have already celebrated it hope you have a great spring!

Dyed eggs!

On Holy Thursday the Greek Orthodox dye their eggs for Easter.
This year I dyed some in pastel colours and some using silk threads.
Here are my results.
First I bought white eggs from the local food open market.

 I bought a packet of dyed silk threads(one euro) and a packet of liquid egg paints(one euro).

 First you wet the eggs and then lay them in some threads. I tried to make some in certain colours by dividing the threads. But some I made in various colours. Then you wrap the egg and threads in aluminum foil and boil for 20 minutes.

 When I opened them they looked like that. Those I liked I kept, the rest I dyed with the liquid paints too.

 Here's the result.

 And here are the ones I dyed with the liquid egg paints only. Red, orange,green, blue and yellow. My favourite? Yes the blue. I also gave  a try to nail polish dyeing of eggs(the blue and orange one was the only one I made as I wasn't happy with the results.And we really want to eat the eggs.)

I also sketched on some of the eggs.

 And am going to keep my favourite turquoise and purple thread dyed one.

And today we paid a visit to my best friend whose son is my Godson. It is a custom for the Godmother to bring gifts to her Godchild. As my Godson is having a Harry Potter attraction at present I bought him two of the books and made him an Easter candle with a Harry Potter keyring!

We played with their pets.

 As they live out of the city we took the chance to walk a bit around the countryside too!

 And we left with a lovely bouquet of lilacs and wild flowers along with....

 a tsoureki(traditional sweet bread of Easter) and eggs and chocolate eggs.

I would like to wish you all the best for Easter! Have a great weekend!