Blessed Spring Equinox, Blessed Ostara!

Ellen's mantle all decorated for Ostara

I've been decorating for the sabbat at home and today I thought it would be fun to share my latest Witch-Craft project. These are decorated eggs dyed to look like real bird eggs. I have seen variations of this project on Pinterest and decided to try it out for myself.

To begin you are going to want to hard boil your eggs. The best way I have ever found to do this is to put the eggs in the pot, cover them with cool water and bring the eggs to a boil. Cover the pot with a lid, and remove it from heat. Allow the eggs to stay in the pot, covered for 12 minutes. Then remove them from the water and let them sit out on a towel to dry and to cool off.  (Perfectly cooked eggs- every time!)

Here we have the cooked eggs cooling on a kitchen towel. Also you'll see the supplies that I used to achieve the colors. Tea bags, plain old food coloring and vinegar- oh and HOT water.
I allowed the eggs to thoroughly cool (about 2 hours) and after I came back from the gym this morning, I hit the showers, got human, and prepared to start coloring the eggs.

To start you will need one cup boiling water and 2 tsps. of vinegar-- per each color that you want to achieve. To make the soft brown eggs,  I actually brewed up some plain Lipton tea and cut one of the bags open- then added the vinegar to the mug I used to hold the egg dye. The vinegar helps to set the color. I measured out the vinegar into the mugs first, then I carefully poured the boiling water into each thick mug



So then- 1 cup boiling water + 2 teaspoons white vinegar + 15 drops of food coloring. In each mug. (Or use two tea bags in a mug for brown).

I used about 15 drops of blue in one mug,  and 10 drops of green with 4 drops of blue to get a soft robin's egg blue in a second mug.
See to the left one blue and blue green egg drying on a towel and the brown eggs being dyed in the mug.



To the right, here are the eight eggs I did, drying on paper towels and tea towels. Once they were dry I mixed up some non-toxic acrylic craft paint to a medium brown color and splattered the dyed and now dry eggs with the brown paint. That gave them a more realistic look.




And here are a few of the finished eggs in a cute little antique pottery bowl on my kitchen counter. I can't decide which color I like better, the blue or the blue-green. Of course I love brown eggs anyway- here in the Midwest brown eggs are more expensive than white eggs. So I thought this soft golden brown was pretty. But best of all these decorated eggs look more like the real birds eggs you would find in nature- they are just larger. Also don't forget to keep your hard boiled eggs in the fridge after you are finished decorating and dying them.




Finally here is a snazzy picture on the right my daughter took for me. One of these days I have to have her teach me how she uses filters and such on her iPhone. It only took me about 15 minutes to figure out how to get the picture from my facebook to the blog. (sigh). Damn you technology...

In closing, this year I wrote the Ostara ritual for the 2013 Sabbat Almanac for Llewellyn this year. If you would like some ideas for celebrating the sabbat, a ritual for Ostara,  and more information on the Bird Goddess- who I think I very appropriate for this sabbat anyway- check it out!

Don't forget my book Seasons of Witchery- for even more ideas and magick for your all of your sabbat celebrations! Here is a direct link to amazon.com to pick up a copy. http://www.amazon.com/Seasons-Witchery

I wish you all a blessed and bright Spring and an enchanting Vernal Equinox!
Ellen