The Children's Easter Party

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.

Collecting Milk Glass and Jadeite For Easter

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.

More Related Content:

• National Milk Glass Collectors Society
• National Westmoreland Glass Collectors Club

Video by Vintage Variety.

A Mirror Duck Pond Makes a Picturesque Table Decoration

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.

More About Ducks:

• Ducks and Geese On The Farm
• How to craft a home (pond) for toy ducks
• The Pond by Jane Taylor

Alternatives to Easter Baskets

      You needn't display your eggs in baskets only. This year I put my decorative eggs from past Easters into an antique wooden box that has an enormous handle and old rusty nails.

Wood shavings would look more attractive than Easter grass,
but, my husband has not been working in his shop much this winter.
 So, I had to make due with what was on hand.

Here is a side view of this old wooden box. It is falling apart,
so I only use it for special occasions.

The box looks nice on my old Welsh cupboard, I think.

Assembling An Easter Egg Tree From Scratch

      For many years I have assembled Easter egg trees from scratch. In part this is due to the lack of them that may be purchased. I do have an artificial Easter egg tree that you will see in a later post after I have decorated it. This year my youngest begged for a "real Easter egg tree" similar to the ones she grew up with. As you can see by clicking on the photo below, this one is made with real branches that have been manipulated with great industry. If you have access to lovely branches that need pruning, it is totally unnecessary to paper mache over the branches. Unfortunately, this year I was unable to find suitable branches for such an assembly. The branches that I used were those that I picked up off of my front lawn after a early March storm. These were fragile and uninteresting at best. So, I decided to improve them myself, thereby, demonstrating that one can have only a few options and still create a truely lovely Easter display.

      Left, are the river rocks brought to me by an Easter guest one year. These are highly unusual quartz. I have saved them for many years and I think they will indeed become a traditional inclusion in my Easter decor. Next, I have photographed an old ceramic pot that has very decorative raised designs. I love the patina on the pot and it also goes with the colors on the walls of the study area where I will be displaying my Easter egg tree. In the middle, you can see I have very little to work with in terms of nicely shaped branches and these are falling apart as well. In the following photo, I have begun to hot glue and tape my little tree. Last photograph, I completed the shape as it pleased me and also assembled the mache covered branches into my ceramic pot between the river quartz. This process took approximately three hours. I only need now to hot glue the pink silk, floral buds onto the little egg tree to complete it's final look.

      I layered onto my branches masking tape and then brown paper with tacky white glue. The finished tree structure is really quite strong. I could probably save this little tree for a few more years to use in displays if I wanted to. A few trimmings and a little hot glue are not normally worth the storage space to me. 

      Young teens could craft such a project and create even more elaborate additions. Next year I will include some more examples of egg trees for my visitors to think about crafting for themselves, but for now this classic version will suffice.

On the far left you can see the finished Easter egg tree. Center, a closer view.
 Right, a close up of the Easter figurines below.

A few things included on this egg tree are tiny white doves, Easter lilies, birds, and very light
weight Easter eggs. The pink silk flowers and rustic ceramic pot are complemented by the brick
 colored walls and concrete counter tops.

I have tied a paper cross to the very top branch.