An Easter Bonnet Collage Competition

Video of a annual school Easter bonnet competition.

      Your school can sponsor a Easter Bonnet Contest for Spring. I've included an ad below from the The Day Book. Chicago Ill. 1915. The pictures have been cleaned and resized here at our blog for teachers to promote an Easter bonnet drawing competition of their very own. 

      I have also included a collage example using the same template. My students snipped and glued all kinds of fuzzy, furry tactile elements to their Easter bonnets, instead of drawing on them.

Easter bonnet collage made with template below
and construction paper, pom poms, feathers, chenille
stems etc... Girls Win Your Easter Hat!

"Sketch your idea of an attractive spring bonnet above this face. Then fill out the blank and mail it to the Fashion Editor of The Day Book. A different face will be printed for four days, today, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Send in as many drawings as you wish as long as they are all drawn on pictures clipped from The Day Book. This contest closes March 29. The winner will be presented with an Easter bonnet, like her design, Free. The materials must not exceed $10.00 in cost."

The Wind by Maud M. Johnson

The wind is very busy,

He's sweeping with might and main;

He's sweeping the clouds from the 

stormy sky

So that it shall not rain.

He's sweeping up the leaves

That littered the country lane;

And now he sweeps with delicious breath

The dust from my tired brain. 

Maud M. Johnson.

Paint Easter Eggs Like Comic Friends!

      This page about Easter eggs was published in The Day Book, April 21, 1916. The Day Book was an ad free, daily newspaper published by Edward Willis Scripps in the city of Chicago from 1911 to 1917.

Hey There Kids! Paint Easter Eggs Like Your Old Comic Friends!

      Here you are kids! All of your old friends celebrating Eastertide. Here's Ev. True looking cross and almost ready to have an outburst and break right through his shell. Here's the bear with a grin so wide it may meet in the back and divide his face right in two. You've heard of Easter bunnies but where did you ever hear of an Easter bear before?

      Now get busy, kids, and see how much like your old friends you can make your Easter eggs! 

1. Tint the entire egg pink.
2. Cut hat brims for the Ev. True and Tom Duff eggs out of cardboard, allowing enough space in the center of the brims so they will fit over the tops of the eggs. Paint the brims black.
3. Rub the back of the paper on which the faces are printed with a soft pencil to make a sort of carbon paper, then trace the features on eggs.
4. Paint the features on the eggs with ink. 

Easter Eggs Masquerade as Cartoon Characters: Easter eggs may be transformed into likenesses of cartoon and nursery-tale characters, with attractively colored cut-outs now available in book form. Each design provides both a base and a headpiece for a tinted egg, as shown, and the book contains materials for dressing up twenty eggs in different guises.

Christ The Lord Is Risen Today!

Video is by "The Hour of Power." Visit the Crystal Cathedral.

      The Crystal Cathedral broadcasts its church services around the world on a television show called the Hour of Power, said to be the most-watched Christian program worldwide, with an estimated average of 20 million viewers tuning in each week. The church provides facilities for those of a similar faith to congregate and offers campus services including support groups, Sunday school classes and daily Christian gatherings.

      The church regularly features the testimonies of prominent people during the Hour of Power services. Notable guests have included former USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of India A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, former United States Vice President Al Gore, former United States Attorney General John Ashcroft, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, noted Catholic broadcaster Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, musician John Tesh, Christian singer Jaci Velasquez, pianist Roger Williams, flautist Sir James Galway, Christian singer Joy Williams, Backstreet Boys member and Christian singer Brian Littrell, Christian singer Natalie Grant, Christian rock band Sonicflood, singer Robert Sims, American tenor Daniel Rodriguez, musical group The Oak Ridge Boys, Christian singer Sara Groves, Irish tenor Ronan Tynan; former tennis star Michael Chang, actors Kirk Douglas, Roy Rogers, Noah Gray-Cabey, and Denzel Washington, radio talk-show host Laura Schlessinger, and MLB baseball player Kirk Gibson.

Heavenly Ways to Color Easter Eggs

Egg coloring and dying process reminds me
of the views of heaven brought back by NASA
James Webb Space Telescope!

       These "heavenly" looking Easter eggs were colored by combining two traditional techniques. 

1. First, you will need to hard boil white eggs on the stove top. While the eggs are still hot, use tongs to remove them and set them inside of a paper egg carton cup. The crayons may be either rubbed directly onto the hot surfaces of the egg or these may be shredded using a pencil sharpener and sprinkled onto the eggs to melt down the sides. 
2.  The hotter the egg surface, the brighter and bolder the crayons will look. 
3. Next, it is very important after these first two steps to let the eggs cool down completely before dying them.
4. Prepare the food dyes by boiling hot water and adding 1 cup of water to a heavy mug along with a Tablespoon of white vinegar and four to five drops of food coloring for each mug. 
5. Then stir each color with a spoon and allow the dyes to cool completely before soaking the eggs in them. Often times when dying eggs the food color mixture is warmish, however, if you where to dip the crayon covered eggs in a hot to warm food dye at this point, most of the crayon color would melt off with the soft wax covering.
6. The food dye colors will naturally attach themselves to the parts of the egg where there is no wax pigment.
   

21 Additional Helpful Hints for Painting and Dying Easter Eggs:

1. Eggs at room temperature are easier to dye.
2. Soaking empty egg shells in a vinegar and water solution will loosen the inside membrane so that it may be removed easily.
3. You can rub the surface of a dyed Easter egg with vegetable oil in order to intensify the color.
4. You can paint the surface of a hollow egg with any type of paint, but most folk artists prefer dyes, inks or acrylic paints.
5. Designs 'in the round' are considered more aesthetic because the egg itself is round.
6. Although American crafters have a preference for pastel colored eggs, the bold colors of the European/Asian folk artists are the oldest and the most traditional.
7. Vinegar kills most molds, bacterias, germs etc. associated with eggs.
8. Hard-cooked eggs minimizes cracking when dying edible varieties for Easter. Bring the water to a boil, then turn of the burner and allow the eggs to sit in very hot water for 12 to 18 minutes, longer if the eggs are larger.
9. Fresh eggs are difficult to peal.
10. Hard-cooked eggs are edible when refrigerated up to one week, if you leave them in the shell.
11. If you remove the shell from a hard-cooked egg, eat it immediately.
12. Eggs left in their shells are not microwavable.
13. You can not cook an egg in it's shell if you try to do so above 10,000 feet. If you live in the mountains, you will need to blow out the contents of the egg before dying or painting them for Easter!
14. If you should decide to craft with plastic eggs, it is best to lightly sand these before applying glue. The unaltered plastic surface is very difficult to adhere many objects to.
15. Always seal surfaces of wooden or plastic painted eggs with acrylic varnish or Mod Podge in order to preserve your work.
16. Real hollow eggs that are either hand-painted or carved are considered more collectable because of their fragility. 
17. Some antique metal eggs with original paint are also highly sought after by collectors.
18. Silk dyed eggs must be dyed in an enamel pot that you have no plans for using for any other cooking purposes. This is because silk dyes are toxic and these dyes also interact with metals in unpredictable ways. You can find enamel pots in resale stores or Goodwill outlets. These were very popular during the early 1900's.
19. To achieve dark colors on your eggs, simply leave them in dying solutions longer. 
20. You don't need to purchase little kits to dye your eggs. You can mix your own egg dye with one cup of boiling water, a tablespoon of white vinegar and a little food color. 
21. Dye your Easter eggs in deep mugs so that the eggs may be submerged completely for a uniform dyed surface.

 Spring by Anne K. Alexander
Early in the morning
When the sky is still and gray,
The robin perches on a tree
And sings a roundelay.