A few years ago, a very dear friend introduced our family to cascarones, or confetti eggs…a super-fun, and very messy way to conclude an Easter egg hunt.
Assembling the cascarones is not at all difficult. A few weeks prior to Easter, I begin saving eggshells. I make a lot of scrambled eggs and simply use a butter knife to “tap” a small opening in the top of the egg. After dumping the contents, I carefully rinse each eggshell and place it, hole side down, in a carton to dry, to be decorated and filled later. There are more than a few ways to decorate and fill the cascarones, but this is how we do ours, and it couldn’t be easier! We simply fill each egg with confetti, carefully gluing a small disk of tissue paper over the opening and then decorate with magic markers. That’s it…no dye, no drying…the cascarones are ready to be hid with the other Easter eggs!
And what fun! Once found, the children take great delight in cracking them over one another’s heads or pelting mom and dad with them…I’ve saved two dozen eggs, so far, and the children are delighted that we will be hiding cascarones this Easter!
Another nifty use for your emptied eggshells: roll up a small scroll of paper with directions leading the “finder” to a “treasure,” and place inside the egg. These surprise eggs are a lot of fun and can be marked with a “?” to differentiate them from the cascarones or traditional decorated Easter eggs.
More empty eggshell excitement: try your hand at pysanky. These eggs are magnificent…I purchased a kit last year 
for my father from Ukrainian Gift Shop…I can’t wait to see what he comes up with! Decorating Easter eggs is a favorite family tradition, in case you haven’t guessed!
How about coloring your traditional Easter eggs using things you may have around the house? By using the following items, you can achieve nearly every color in the spectrum:
| Lavender | Small Quantity of Purple Grape Juice Violet Blossoms plus 2 tsp Lemon Juice |
| Violet Blue | Violet Blossoms Small Quantity of Red Onions Skins (boiled) |
| Blue | Canned Blueberries Red Cabbage Leaves (boiled) Purple Grape Juice |
| Green | Spinach Leaves (boiled) Liquid Chlorophyll |
| Greenish Yellow | Yellow Delicious Apple Peels (boiled) |
| Yellow | Orange or Lemon Peels (boiled) Carrot Tops (boiled) Celery Seed (boiled) Ground Cumin (boiled) Ground Turmeric (boiled) |
| Brown | Strong Coffee Instant Coffee Black Walnut Shells (boiled) |
| Orange | Yellow Onion Skins (boiled) |
| Pink | Beets Cranberries or Juice Raspberries Red Grape Juice Juice from Pickled Beets |
| Red | Lots of Red Onions Skins (boiled) |
Eggs. So much fun, in such a small package…
Blessings,
I am a traditional Catholic homeschooling mother of 9 children, married for 30 years to the most patient and sainted man. As converts to Catholicism in 1991, our family has only recently discovered the beauty and full expression of our beliefs in the timeless liturgy of antiquity, the Extraordinary Form also commonly referred to as the Traditional Latin Mass. An avid knitter, I also enjoy gardening, reading and immersing myself in the everyday graces of my vocation.
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Oh, we love cascarones here! I grew up in San Antonio, and Fiesta was a big celebration there, with cascarones always a big part of it.
Those Pysanky are beautiful! I would love to learn how to do that. I’m just not sure my patience would hold out! LOL!
Blessings,
~Kathy
Thanks for the natural egg-dye tips! I was actually thinking of doing that this year so that the children can do a little learning with their egg-coloring. Does “boiled” mean that you boil the raw egg in the dye?
Nadja:
To get the maximum depth of color, you boil the item you with to extract the color from, but can also boil the egg in the dye as well, for even deeper color. If you’d like to see some lovely eggs, check out Charlotte’s! She’s been doing this for a couple years and has even used tea to dye hers! Check out Eggs-cellent Fun and Eggscellent Creativitea. Lovely!
[...] am creating…One more white hat. We’ll also spend this week finishing the cascarones, decorate eggs, and plan our Easter menu. I hope to bake a couple more loaves of Fasting Bread [...]
[...] We’ve stuffed the cascarones… [...]