EASTER FAVOURS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 12, 25 March 1893, Page 286

EASTER FAVOURS.

Requests have been sent in for hints on Easter dinner favours, and for inexpensive tokens appropriate to the season. The cross is coming to be considered an unsuitable emblem for Easter decoration ; if used, it should be floriated, that is, the ends and arms should be ornamented, as the plain cross was an olden instrument of death. The little work called • Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament,’ by A. Welby Pugin is good authority for decorations suitable to all church festival days. The book is fully illustrated with chromo lithographs and word engravings and is valueable for a Sunday-school library. Appropriate decorations are the butterfly, that emblem of the resurrection, cut flowers, such as lilies, the lotus, cactus, palm leaves, wheat, and growing plants. A bird’s nest, eggs, birds on wing, the rising sun, etc. For hundreds of years English children have enjoyed coloured or painted eggs at Easter. Such eggs make an attractive decoration for an Easter breakfast, and may be coloured with aniline dyes, or-sewed up in calico and boiled for ten minutes, or placed in the pot with red onions to boil. In the latter case they turn purple, but are apt to be flavoured by the vegetable. The eggs may be first boiled ami then decorated by the brush and paint. A grocer’s egg box, prettily decorated for the purpose, may be used as a stand for the eggs, or a piece of stiff cardboard with holes cut to hold the eggs and trimmed with tissue-paper will answer. Unique napkin-holders, which will also serve as dinner favours, may be cut in the form of a palm leaf. Make from eight to twelve inches long, of two pieces of Bristol-board. Tint the upper one a delicate green, darker near the edges, and in the centre print with gold paint the guest’s name and the date, or an Easter greeting. The ends should be tied with green or white ribbon, and the napkin should be placed between the two pieces. The same paper may be cut in pieces four by sixteen inches and folded once, the upper piece bearing a pretty design, an Easter sentiment or the guest’s name. A bow of ribbon may hold the edges of the folio together, and the napkin be slipped into the fold thus made. Egg-shaped cards, cut from water-colour paper of rough surface, decorated with an appropriate design, a stalk of white lilies, a bird on the wing, some chicks bursting the shell, a bright-hued butterfly, or simply some text or sentiment underlined artistically with bright red ink or paint, with the word ‘ Easter ’ above and ‘ 1893 ’ below, would be pretty dinner favours. Chamois-skin sachets may be made in shape like an egg, by being stuffed with perfumed cotton batting. These, when neatly made and decorated with a pretty rosette and loop of silk or gold cord and beating the talismanic words ‘ Easter Greeting,’ cannot fail of being pleasing gifts. A butterfly sachet is another unique souvenir. Paint upon bolting silk, chamois, kid, silk, or water colour paper, a butterfly ; cut it out neatly and fasten it in the centre of a handsome bow of white ribbon, concealing beneath its wings a tiny bag of perfume. Candy eggs may be made as follows : Discharge an eggshell of its contents through an incision made in one end. Fill the shell with warm icing sugar, white sugar toffee, or any other kind that will harden and keep its shape. Before it hardens make a loop to carry it by, by thrusting the two ends of a narrow white ribbon, into the sugar. When the sugar is cold and hard, the shell may be prettily decorated by gold lines and stars with a motto, or the shell may be torn away and the sugar egg beautified by tissue-paper fringe or a band and bow. A glass bowl of these delectable sweets is a great treat for the youngsters of a family at an Easter dinuer dessert. Charming little bonbon trays may be made of transparent celluloid, laced up with narrow nbbon or fine silk coid. These, ornamented with a posy and sentiment and filled with homemade candies,will gladden the little ones’ hearts, or be an attraction at the Easter sale or bazaar. Blow a dozen eggs in this way : with a darning-needle make a small hole in each end of the shell ; then apply the lips to one incision and blow the contents into a dish. Put tissue-paper caps on the eggs, and with pen and ink or brush and sepia make faces of old ladies, simpering girls or crying babies on the oval sides of the eggs. Or, put a scarlet fez on one with some fierce whiskers, and draw the features of a Turk. Quaint and grotesque conceits may be represented by these eggshells, if one has the time and the ability- Charlotte Whitcomb.