I remember this particular Easter as "White Easter" because it was the year that all of the flowers used to decorate the house were white. There were white lilies, white hydrangea, and even white iris had blossomed very early in the garden.
My husband and children had purchased the flowers earlier than usual, so, by the time Easter rolled around, some of the petals were not as crisp.
Above is the Holy Week Devotional from that year.
I displayed a few of my older porcelain pieces that are white.
These white lilies bloomed early that Easter.
Here are the gorgeous hydrangea that I received a week prior to Easter that year.
My children decorated our home for Easter very early in the morning. This is one of our
family traditions.
Jonquils or daffodils are some of their favorite flowers.
Jonquils are some of the very first flowers to blossom in the early spring. Most of our neighbors
grow them beneath their shrubs and in planting beds around their homes.
My girls decorated the center of our Easter table with graphic postcards, white candles, large shells and chocolates.
Before plates, silverware, and goblets are added to the table, a runner is arranged down the
center of the table.
Flowers speak the language of the heart. They convey the most personal and individual sentiment, while appealing to common universal taste and imagination. This characteristic of flowers, fits them especially for uses of religion and of church service, since they both express private affections of the giver and enrich symbolism of the altar. A basket or cross of flowers can say all the heart wishes to say, and say it without obtruding personal feeling. In medieval times flowers spoke a definite language, the interpretation of which has seemed almost lost. The palm--the ancient classical symbol of victory--was early assumed by Christians as a symbol of martyrdom. It was placed into hands of those who suffered in the cause of truth, as expressing their final victory over powers of sin and death. It also figured on tombs of early martyrs.
Above are the finished versions of the simple fabric napkin rings for Easter dinner.
This simple sewing project may be ac-
complished in one or two afternoons prior
to a party by a child as young as 10
or 11 years old.
It's important for parents involve their children in both the presentation of a family party and also in the execution of a party, especially if they are old enough to help out. Young people can easily decorate a table setting for a holiday event with things like: floral displays, name place tags and napkin rings.
I've included here a sewing project that would be simple enough for a preteen to put together for their family Easter table. The felt bunnies and chicks came from a Hobby Lobby and the fabric from a local Joanne's store. Both items together did not cost me more than five dollars.
The craft takes a little advanced planning. You will need to probably color coordinate your fabric selection with the dishes you plan to use. Let your child take a sample plate to the fabric store and hold it up next to the fabrics in order to choose something appropriate. Give him or her several days to complete this sewing project, if they have never attempted to sew before. Their stitching doesn't need to be perfect but you should give them time to practice if they are to attempt it to completion without parental help.
Cut the fabric into strips measuring approximately 3 inches wide and 5 inches long. Allow for a seam of about half an inch. With the right sides together, sew around the perimeter of the strips after folding these in half and leave one end open in order to turn the finished tube inside out. Whip stitch the ends shut and then stitch both finished edges together with a blanket stitch. Iron or glue the felt animals onto the napkin rings. Insert pastel colored napkins (fabric or paper) and set the Easter table for company.
If your youngsters enjoy this kind of project, why not assign the responsibility to them every year?
This year I decided to decorate my Welsh cupboard in whites and pastel colors. Because Easter is so early this year, these decorations actually went up during a birthday celebration in our home. Since then the lilies have gone and the hydrangeas have dried nicely.
This old cupboard was my mother-in-laws.
The old china is from a relative whom, sadly, moved away.
I picked up this egg candy dish for five dollars at a flee market this year.
Hydrangeas are some of my most favorite flowers.
The woven, porcelain basket was acquired
several years ago at another flee market.
One of my happy finds at a local antique mall, a covered
porcelain dish covered with three dimensional daisies.
White Easter lilies are now gone but I
have this lovely photo to remember them.
Decorated crepe paper tulip cup cake holders and tulip favors may be happily arranged on this spring table trimmed for Easter. Yellow tulips are cut out and appliqued on the circular paper cover; the tulip border is combined with plain yellow paper for the runner and again appears in the hanging dome decoration. Fringe cut and then scalloped hangs between the border pieces on the chandelier decoration, and narrow streamers extend from it to the sides of the room.
A flower pot covered with two different colors of crepe, (stripes)
and filled with paper tulips in which favors are attached,
makes this little display unique. These little coordinating
accessories: potted tulip place holder and cup cake holders
complete the theme.
Mrs Marchand puts the finishing touches on a porcupine. On the table stand a finished ostrich and deer.
Berthe Marchand used her ingenuity. Needing something original for
the Easter table—something for the children to admire—she hit on the
idea of making an entire zoo of animals, using colored Easter eggs and
other odd bits of material easily obtained for a few cents at any
stationer’s.
Why don’t you do the same? It just takes patience, nimble fingers,
and extreme care in handling the eggs— which can be dropped only once!
Far left, Making a porcupine. A paper-shell nut is inserted into a clay neck on an egg. Next, the peanut legs are being carefully affixed to the roughed-out figure. Head feet, and all parts of the body not covered by clay are painted. And last, after he's got his paper eyes and comb, "Porky" receives his quills.
The finished porcupine with toothpicks for quills.
Left, Mr. Penguin. Egg, peanuts, clay, felt toothpicks. Center, The giraffe
has neck and legs of red soda straws, of course. Right, The kangaroo,
above, has a yellow-painted-egg body, a cotton pouch, and peanut legs.
The swan, just above, is made of egg, cotton,
paper fringing, and colored pipe-cleaners.
Left, The ostrich--with egg body, pipe-cleaner legs and nick, ad a
ball -with-a-hole head. Right, The most fee-ro-cious lion ever made.
Walnut head and peanut feet.
The following article is from the Ogden Standard, Ogden City, Utah. It was published on March 23, 1918.
War Time Favors Include Plenty of Easter Chicks
Like good old Santa Claus, the Easter rabbit and the Easter chick admit a Teutonic origin, but one is sure that they --like the beloved folk of fairy lore ---have abandoned the land of their birth for a kindlier environment and will never more return.
At any rate children, the world over, will never let them go back. They are world-traditions now and may claim no special country. They belong to the realm of childhood and if grown-ups choose to get pleasure out of them, it is a vicarious pleasure at best and not to be compared with childhood's ecstasy. Watch any little boy or girl in front of a confectioner's window where enchanting bunnies and downy Easter chicks are displayed and you will have no doubt of the matter.
Poultry and ears of corn have a pertinent Hoover suggestion.
The rabbit poppin' out of the hat seems to say: "What Next?"
There seems to be just as many rabbits and chicks as ever this year, white rabbits and gray rabbits and pretty brown and white fellows with pink bows standing up behind their pink-lined ears. The white cats are are fascinating too and are only less downy and soft then the baby chicks --some of them live chicks that scurry about in lively fashion. The little people love these bunnies and chicks mush better than the ambitious Easter favors, ribbon decked and candy filled, which please grown-up sister; and the modern child with an Easter brim-full of joy in bunny and chick gifts, misses not at all the excitement of making Easter eggs that little folks of a generation ago found so thrilling and so satisfying.
The very prettiest Easter
favors adhere to tradition
and present chicks, birds
and bunnies in spring-
like environment.
Scraps of colored prints and calico used to be hoarded long before Easter time in preparation for the egg-coloring fun. The eggs were tied up in the gay colored cloths and boiled until hard. Then with their parti-colored shells and edible, hard-boiled interiors, they were piled on the breakfast table Easter morning. This is not one of the good old economical fashions to be bemoaned in later, more extravagant times; for dairy eggs served in such profusion, no matter how their shells were disguised with printed calico, would be a very very extravagant breakfast dish just now, and would doubtless cost more then a supply of bunnies and feathered chicks to go all 'round.
Quite appropriate and Hoover-ish for this war-time Easter are favors representing one of the excellent vegetables recommended in a conservation diet. Corn is also a patriotic food, since it saves wheat flour; and an attractive Easter favor of this year --respresenting an ear of corn and a feathered chick is pictured. Beside is is a cunning white Easter bunny with pinks ears, popping out of a top hat in suggestive magican manner. But it you lift the bunny out of the hat, you will find a store of candy.
For a table center at Easter season is the pretty dove cote "Jack Horner." The tissue-wrapped gifts are hidden in the dove cote and each dove, perching on a bracket before a crepe paper covered window, has attached to his feet a long ribbon. When the doves are jostled from their perches their weight drags the gift tied to the other end of the ribbon through the crepe paper pasted across the window. The dove cote is one of the interesting crepe paper novelties, of which there are many new sorts this year. Pasteboard covered with crepe paper was used for the little house and the standard is of wood also covered with crepe paper, leaves and vines of crepe paper clamor over the dove cote and in the paper grass at its foot nestle two natural looking barnyard friends, a rabbit and a rooster. Another Hoover suggestion you see; for the injunction now is to eat roast, fried and fricasseed rooster in preference to hens which must be saved and coaxed to lay eggs for the Allies.
Still another crepe paper novelty is pictured in the aeroplane which is quite a gem of its kind. Even the propeller is evident in this nicely balanced craft which is equipped with a formidable amount of ammunition in the way of "bombs" each "bomb" an Easter egg filled with candy. the intrepid pilot sits at the wheel, clad in a saucy uniform of checked silk gingham. Who would ever guess that the long, low rakish body of his craft is filled to the brim with gifts, each attached to a ribbon? When you seize one of the booms--the aeroplane being suspended from the chandelier over the supper table-- you pull the gift attached to your particular ribbon through the crepe paper cover of the aeroplane's body.
The Easter aircraft drop eggs instead of bombs:
The gallant pilot wears a uniform
of saucy checked gingham.
Very naturally, there is a war-time flavor in many of this year's Easter Novelties. Besides aeroplanes and observation planes, there are various sorts of artillery, even the cumbersome British tank being represented in a structure of pasteboard and crepe paper. And there are fighting men too. There are the useful favors too--practical gifts that may be tied up in tissue and white or daffodil ribbon and tucked into Easter Jack Horners. Of course, there is a war-time flavor to these also. The boy back home from camp for the Easter week-end will receive a sowing kit or some leather-bound contrivance for photographs, writing materials or the like: or his favor may be a pair of woolen socks, knitted by friendly feminine hands. Field glasses are valuable gifts and no soldier or sailor objects to receiving a well-used pair, in such demand are these glasses just now. For feminine guests there are jeweled service flags, photograph frames, lockets that will hold a picture of the special hero at the front, and of course, all sorts of knitting belongings--reticules, needle cases, bracelet wool holders and so on.
More Related Content About Vintage & Antique Easter Figurines, 1910-1918:
How To Arrange A Children's Easter Monday Party by Louise E. Dew, 1904
From the beginning to the end, the children's Easter party must be as unique and attractive as time and ingenuity can make it. All the details are to be planned with care, not excluding the sending out of the invitations. Invitations are to be written with violet ink on pure white note paper, at the top of which is a hand-painted little yellow chic holding a single violet in its beak. The point on the envelope flap should also have a chick painted on it, with a violet in its beak and one below the flap.
Don't forget to teach the children how to paint Easter eggs!
As the little guests arrive the young hostess should present them with boutonnieres of pansies with which the basket which she carries on her arm is filled. Violet colored ones should be given to the little girls and yellow ones to the little boys.
The dining room decorations should be entirely in yellow and violet pansies and smilax. A window box should be filled with these dainty blossoms, and they are to be massed in crystal bowls on the sideboard.
Whenever an egg is used for a week before Easter, and end should be chipped off and the contents removed. The shell should then be rinsed with water, and when the shells have generously accumulated they should be dyed violet and yellow along with the regular Easter eggs. A pretty arrangement for the shells is to fasten a knotted end of violet and yellow ribbon to each one with a drop of glue, covering the broken end with a circle of gold paper. These ribbons should be of unequal lengths and suspended in a mass close to the chandelier for a decorative effect.
Underneath the egg shells a large white crepe paper egg should be suspended by violet and yellow ribbons. The heads of tiny yellow chickens, should be peeping out of the egg, as if they were just breaking the shell. Attached to the necks of the chicks should be violet and yellow ribbon leaders, arranged alternately, and passed to the place cards of each small guest. The cards will consist of diminutive oblongs on which tiny yellow chicks and violets are painted, with a quotation about flowers and Easter.
The paper egg center piece will contain dainty souvenirs of the occasion, which may be pulled out during the interim between the luncheon and dessert or after all the food has been served.
In the center of the table make a nest of smilax and fill it with pansies and saucy little egg-shell faces, painted or sketched in India ink. Their faces may represent demure little maidens, popular cartoons or little creatures from the woodlands. These odd little egg people, peering from the smilax nest, will furnish the children with a great deal of amusement while they are eating, and will afterward make appropriate souvenirs.
The menu card at each place will be in the shape of a snow-white swan, cut of deckled paper. The head and wings are cut in one piece, and the tail in another. After printing the menu in violet ink on the tail, the bits of yellow and violet baby ribbon attached to it should be passed around the neck of the swan, which will hold the head in position with that proud curve for which the swan is noted.
These menu cards may be purchased if one is not handy with scissors and pen. The list should read:
Menu
Chicken Sandwiches
Apple Salad
Cream Cheese Eggs
Olives
Egg Punch
Easter Eggs
Angel Sugar Nests
Ice Cream
Assorted Nuts
Candy
Fruit Phosphate
Cake
Cut the sandwiches in egg-shapes before serving them.Individual salad made of apples should be served with them in white paper cases tinted yellow and violet and imbedded in leaves of parsley. Roll the olives in powdered sugar, to resemble eggs. Cream cheese, eggs can be made out of cottage cheese, mixed with cream and rolled into the shape of eggs additionally. Each one should have a large walnut meat pressed firmly into the side of the "egg." Serve on crisp curled lettuce made into a nest. The punch will be simple egg-nogg, of which most children are fond, with nutmeg, vanilla and fruit syrup flavoring.
Easter eggs make an appropriate dessert, wholesome enough to satisfy the heart of a hygienist, and yet delightful to all children. They are made of velvety blanc mange or sparkling translucent jelly. Serve these either piled in a nest of stifly whipped cream or accompanied by a boat of sauce. The prettiest way is to serve an old-fashioned bird's nest in jelly.
To make, empty the contents of egg shell through a fair sized hole in the large end. Rinse the shells and set upright in a pan of flour or cracked ice, if gelatine is used. Fill with the jelly or blanc mange, and when cold and firm peel the egg shell from around it. A pint of jelly will usually fill six, if colored eggs are preferred, use the color paste which is sold by grocers, and which is perfectly harmless. Harlequin eggs may be made by using remnants of different colors, letting each one harden, then adding another color, until the shell is filled. Bewitching rainbow effects will be the result.
To make the nest, use a mould of jelly partly full. When hardened, pile gelatine eggs on top. Arrange over and about them a suitable quantity of "straw" yellow sponge sugar, which any confectioner can supply, or orange peel cut in tiny shreds. Angel sugar nests may be made out of angel food, cut round, and with a depression in the center. This cake should be piled high with candy eggs in all colors. The ice cream may be served an egg mould. A simple and harless phosphate may be home-made, and should in the shape of eggs, with the aid of consist of the juices of oranges, lemons and pineapple, with sugar water and cracked ice added.
Make the cake in the shape of a big egg and frost it yellow. Surmount the cake with tiny yellow and violet candles to light as the cake is being presented and after the first course of sandwiches, salad and relishes clear the table for the chick centerpiece. This impressive "chicken pie," made of yellow and violet crepe paper and covered with artificial chicks is set in the center of a hay or straw arrangement quickly assembled in the center of the table. Violet and yellow ribbon leaders should be placed within reach of each guest around the table. These leaders are tied to the souvenir egg cups, sprayed with hand-painted pansies. Each child's place setting should consist of a gilded egg with corresponding initials of the guest along with a diminutive nest of green moss on top of a plate, piled high with candy eggs off to one side of the dessert plates. Serve the cake and ice cream and wait for the children to finish before encouraging them to pull their ribbon leaders at your signal, whereupon they will be rewarded with amusing little snapping bon-bons.
After luncheon, organize an egg contest as a surprise event. Present a large hen's egg and ask the children to guess how large the circumference of the egg is. Give everyone time to answer and then reward the closest guess with a prize in the shape of a papier mache chick or something similar.
A ping pong or small billard table will make an excellent "lawn" on which to roll the colored Easter eggs, which will be provided by the "host child." A game may be made of the egg-rolling and prizes offered. (edited version)
A contemporary presentation of a children's Easter party table.
Additional suggestions for Children's Easter parties:
A display of Jadeite Fire King in an antique
shop. Rarer blue Azurite milk glass tableware is also shown.
Jadeite (kitchenware), also known as "Fire King Jade-ite", is a type of glass tableware made of Jade-green opaque milk glass, popular in the United States in the mid-20th century. A blue variety called "Azur-ite" was also produced for several years. Jade-ite and Azur-ite were both produced by Anchor Hocking. It should not to be confused with jadite, a green jade-coloured shade of vaseline glass product made in the early 20th century.
The "Jadeite Fire King" brand was first produced by the United States glassware firm Anchor Hocking in the 1940s. Most of Anchor Hocking's output of Jadeite was between 1945 and 1975. A durable product in a fashionable color, it became the most popular product made by Anchor Hocking.
The glassware's popularity also makes it an affordable and popular
collectable today. Reproduction items are produced today by various
manufacturers. Fire King Jadeite is still produced in reproduction lines
by Anchor Hocking, which designs variations into its reproductions so
that they are not mistaken for originals, to maintain the integrity of
the genuine status of original Jadeite articles.
Jeannette Glassware was a United States manufacturer of green milk glass tableware similar in appearance to Jadeite Fire King. Kitchenware in other materials, such as aluminum canisters and bread
containers, were produced in the mid-20th century in the same shade of
Jadeite green, to match the glassware. White milk glass is an opaque or translucent, milky white or colored glass, blown or pressed into a wide variety of shapes. First made in Venice in the 16th century, colors include blue, pink, yellow, brown, black, and the white that led to its popular name.
Decorative pedestal milk glass bowl.
First made in Venice
in the 16th century, colors include blue, pink, yellow, brown, black,
and white. 19th-century glass makers called milky white opaque glass "opal glass". The name milk glass is relatively recent. The white color is achieved through the addition of an opacifier, e.g. tin dioxide or bone ash. Milkware was made into decorative dinnerware, lamps, vases, and costume jewelry, milk glass was highly popular during the fin de siecle. Pieces made for the wealthy of the Gilded Age are known for their delicacy and beauty in color and design, while Depression glass
pieces of the 1930s and '40s are less so. Perhaps one of the most
famous uses of opal glass (or at least the most viewed example) was for
the four faces of the information booth clock at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan.
Build a miniature pond scene at the center of a children's
Easter table.
Every trick and surprise of the table decoration is appreciated by children who possess special aptitude for absorbing every tiny detail; nothing seems to escape their scrutinizing attention.
A comparatively inexpensive idea is to place a table mirror, the larger the better, in the center of the table and fringe it with greens. Watercress makes an attractive border; so does smilax and asparagus or maiden-hair fern. At intervals station miniature artificial trees. In the center place little goslings, setting several among the greens. Fill a toy boat with wee chickens, out of consideration of their non-aquatic abilities. The chickens and goslings may be purchased for mere pocket change at a local toy shop.
More realistic, of course, would be a wide, low dish, filled with water, having fuzzy yellow creatures floating upon the surface. Daffodils, crocuses or jonquils laid at intervals among the green would add a picturesque touch.
Through the lack of knowledge of just what to do and how to care for your Easter plants, when you receive them, much of your anticipated pleasure is lost by the fact that they remain in flower such a short time.
The general course pursued by florists to have all their plants in a state of perfection for Easter week is to force them along in quite a warm temperature until they are sure they will flower in for the Easter trade: then the plants are taken to cool houses to "harden up" and given a great deal of air.
Easter Jonquils
Naturally, in this process of forcing they are kept very wet at the roots and syringed frequently over the tops, this syringing sometimes being done twice in a day.
It is necessary to know this so you will understand the changed conditions into which a plant is placed when brought into our homes, where the atmosphere is generally dry and warm. It is usually placed in a window and possibly the first day we fail to give it any water, and the second day, perhaps not before 10 o'clock in the morning, and even then only a little is poured in the surface of the soil of each pot, which in an hour (owing to the dry atmosphere) has evaporated. Is it any wonder that before the evening of the second day we find the plants silting and the flowers lying over the pots?
You all desire to have your flowers attractive and fresh looking as long as possible, and you will experience no difficulty if you will only give them the same treatment they receive before leaving the greenhouse. As soon as you receive the plant, before placing it in the window, give it a thorough soaking. To dampen its is of little use, but thoroughly soaking at the roots stiffens, freshens and revives the flowers.
In the case especially of azaleas and hydrangeas it is necessary to stand them in a bucket of water for at least ten minutes twice a day. This same method of watering applies to many other Easter plants.
Easter lilies can be kept in the pot in any handy place until about the middle of May, when they may be planted in the garden flower bed or border. The tops will die away, but late in the summer they will almost invariably make a new bulb and the flower again. Hydrangeas can be planted out in the ground in the hot sun. In the fall lift and pot them, and they will flower beautifully the next spring. A second method is to plant them out in the garden where they can remain permanently. In this case, plant them on the north side of the house and they will flower in profusion every year. But if planted in southern exposure, as amateurs so frequently do, they will produce no flowers, or at most only one or two very indifferent blossoms and a mass of strong, vigorous foliage. Under such a condition the indifferent blossom is really the exception, because they rarely set a bud.
Never are cut flowers more beautiful than at this Easter time, and it hurts a real flower lover to have them fade within twenty-four hours after being delivered from the florist. This may be avoided with a little care. The first thing in opening the box is to sprinkle the blossoms over the top, then place them in a depth of water at least two-thirds the length of the stems. They will last much longer if the bowl in which they are kept is not in too strong a light. Each morning this water must be changed and at least one-half inch of the stems cut off. By following these directions they will in most cases keep fresh for at least a week.
Easter Table Decorations, 1901 from the New York Daily Tribune.
For table decorations at an Easter luncheon the favored combination is green and white, and originality of design and arrangement is not inexhaustible by any means.
The china doves, which are pictured, are one of the novelties of this season, and the many ways of utilizing them in table decoration are particularly effective. One modes is to arrange green satin ribbon across the table, from corner to corner, in the centre of which is a large nest filled with ferns and Easter eggs. The doves, holding lilies of the valley and greenery, are grouped about as one's fancy may dictate, and to add to the effect flights of doves, also filled with the flowers, may be attached to the chandelier or ceiling, each flight being connected by narrow green and white ribbons tied around their necks.
Original photo of china doves filled with ferns
and lilies of the valley that accompanied this article.
If a brighter effect is desired the gay toned spring flowers should be used-jonquils, tulips, daffodils, crocuses, primroses, hyancinths or cyclamens--arranged in simple but artistic fashion.
An ingenious hostess of this city is planning to give an Easter Monday luncheon to six of her women friends. An ornamental box will be presented to each guest when she enters the dining room. Every box will contain a leghorn hat, which the recipient is requested to wear throughout the luncheon. The hats are to be trimmed with natural flowers (no two alike), with ribbon garnitures in corresponding colors. One hat will show bunches of violets, with green foliage and violet ribbon: another will have trimmings of lilies of the valley, mignoette and green ribbon: a third, La France roses and pink ribbon: and the remaining hats will have garnitures fo daffodils and yellow ribbon for one, moss rosebuds for the second, and red carnations intermingled with black velvet for the third.
This elegantly carved wooden swan is by Jack Hughs, JRH, 1985.
A view from the top of the swan; its simplicity is lovely.
This swan may appear as an interesting center piece for
my Easter dinner table this year.
My mother-in-law acquired it on one of her many
antique hunting trips. Although it is not an antique,
it will certainly be worthy of becoming one
someday. I love antiques, but, I appreciate beautiful
artworks even more.
She looks as though she wishes to tell us a secret, doesn't she?
How to make a 3-D origami swan center piece for your Easter table: start this project early, folks.
