Green Ideas for Easter

I haven't had much time to blog lately.  Between work and the usual day to day grind, pretty much doing anything extra has been a real reach for me.

Today I am off for Good Friday (yay!) and have found that I have some spare time on my hands.  So I pulled out my trusty blog idea notebook and what is listed first on the list??? A Greener Easter!  What luck!

I had a whole list of pointers for a greener Easter, but I like to try them out first and take my own pictures, so that you guys can see first hand results of these hints.  I tend not to trust sites or blogs that have taken stories and pictures from other places.  I'm never sure they have tried them out themselves.  Not that they would lie, but, well, you guys know what I mean, right? You can trust that for the most part, most ideas that I post here will have been tried and tested by me and my crack team of testers. (In today's case, my testing companion is my 22 year old son.)

So let's get to it!  First, dying eggs. For many years my family and I have done the tried and true method of colored tablets dropped into dozens of coffee cups of water and vinegar.  Even though I have been very eco-minded for many years, this is one area in which I failed miserably.  I backslid and went for easy.  Then my son became too old for such things, so I really didn't have a reason to try out all the ideas I was finding in my research.

This past year, I again became excited about decorating for holidays and I had book marked a great link on naturally dying Easter eggs.  Today I am sharing that link, along with my personal results. http://chemistry.about.com/od/holidayhowtos/a/eastereggdyes.htm  I know that this method can be time consuming for most of you, so here are a few links for natural and eco-friendly coloring kits. http://www.moolka.com/jzv/prod?o=froogle&prodId=30755&gclid=CI7aluHOoK8CFe4DQAodly9DaQ or http://www.peapods.com/browse.cfm/nawaro-natural-egg-dying-kit-5-colors/4,1981.html.  Please note that I have not tried either of these products, but if any one of you do, please drop me a comment of what you think about them.

Now one of the biggest stumbling blocks green minded people encounter during Easter, the grass. 

That horrible plastic stuff you buy in the store is almost as bad has the icicles people hang on their Christmas trees every year. (I have been icicle free for three years now) Not only is it in no way recyclable, but it is also very hard on your vacuum cleaners!  Yes you can buy some bags of recycled basket filler, but why would you do this when you have easy, accessible items in your very own home?

A couple of the basket filler ideas I am offering you today, come via a couple of very crafty friends of mine.  One very green conscious friend saves pretty colored pages from magazines and shreds them up in her shredder to make Easter Basket Grass.  I don't have a shredder and the idea of hand cutting up all that paper makes me shiver, but I'm sure you can get the general idea of what this looks like it and I can assure you it works really well. And when the holiday is over, you can simply empty it in the recycle bin.  How's that for green?

Another great, simple, cheap, and GREEN idea, is to use cloth for your filler. If you are a creative sewing type (I still have aspirations, but that is one that is slow to come), you may have scraps of this material just lying around.  This is idea for delicate, girlie baskets.  Any pretty spring colored fabric will work, but if you have any left over tulle or organza, they make gorgeous baskets. You can also pick up fabric scraps for cheap at your local fabric store.  Another cool idea I have seen is the use of pastel bandannas, which make for a cute, fun basket. The best thing about these ideas? They are reusable year after year.

Today I am re-purposing some things I have around the house for my filler.  I save all that pretty tissue paper that people put in gift bags for me and I found this lovely shiny stuff that worked well in my basket.

                    But I am most excited about using this feather boa!  Isn't it adorable??

And now for the results of the eggs. Please note that I usually favor brown, cage free farm eggs, but for dying, I used plain ole white store bought eggs. 

For yellow I boiled one egg in turmeric. (now I wish I had done more)  It made it a very lovely shade of yellow, but the color adhered to the rough ends better and turned them into a rusty orange. Still, it makes for a pretty interesting egg, don't you think?

Next I used pomegranate juice and beet juice for pinks and reds.  The pomegranate did not turn out at all, possibly because I used a pomegranate cocktail and not a pure juice.  I had better success with the beet juice, resulting in this very pale pink and when left in longer, a darker, if speckled, pink.

When left in the grape juice for a short period of time, I got this great blue. And when left in much, much longer, (hours folks) it resulted in a deeper purplish blue.

All in all, I think this project was a success. I cold dyed most of my eggs, with the exception of the yellow one.  I think I might have ended up with deeper colors, had I boiled dyed them. Nevertheless,  I am overall satisfied with my little batch of pretty eggs.

I will keep experimenting through out the year to see what will make the best, naturally colored, eggs  possible.  I will be sure to share my findings with you next year.

I hope you all have a very Happy Easter and for my North Little Rock readers, remember the new recycling pick up starts next week.  Yes guys, that is what that huge, new, eyesore of a bin is for. So much more can be recycled now, check your lids for information or go here http://www.regionalrecycling.org/ to find out what to recycle and when your pick up dates are.  For my Park Hill neighbors, that's April 9th.  Make a green girl happy and let me see all those green and yellow bins line the street!