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Show I Fun For Your Family By MISS ABBIE CONDIT National Recreation Association. The approach of Easter is a sure sign that spring is on the way and it's time to step out with something new and different! Few of us realize how old the custom cus-tom of coloring Easter eggs is older, old-er, in fact, than Easter itself. Records Rec-ords describe the coloring of "Easter" "East-er" eggs by the ancient Parsees more than 5,000 years before Christ. The eggs were exchanged at a festival fes-tival in early spring to celebrate the beginning of a new year. Since the Christian feast of Easter coincided co-incided with this festival, the custom of coloring eggs was adopted by the Christians and has now become a part of Easter celebrations in many countries. Actual eggs can be used for favors or table centerpieces. Boil the eggs for 15 minutes and add two table-spoonfuls table-spoonfuls of salt to the water to prevent pre-vent them from cracking. The eggs are then ready for decoration. A novel favor is an egg face. Paint features on a hard boiled egg with ordinary water colors. Cheeks may be pink or red; hair, black, brown, or yellow; eyes, blue or black with dark lashes. Lips, of course, will be red. Construction paper hats, paper eyelashes or eyebrows, yarn or paper pa-per hair, perky bows, or bow ties will add life to your Easter egg people. Make a cardboard "collar" standard stand-ard to keep the egg face in an upright up-right position. Cardboard the weight of that used in manila folders is the most practical. Cut a circle with a diameter of three inches out of cardboard. card-board. In the center of it draw a concentric circle with a diameter of Vi inches. Cut in from the outer edge in a straight line to the edge of the smaller circle and cut it out Fold the edges of the "collar" over one another until the egg will stand upright when inserted in the circular circu-lar hole at the top of the standard. Staple the edges together or fasten with small brads. The standard may be decorated in any way desired. To make an Easter rabbit, insert a hard boiled egg in a standard or cup lined with Easter grass and make eyes from blue cloth. A dot of pink paper makes the nose, two red lines the mouth, and a few slender pieces of white paper the whiskers. Cut pink ears from construction or crepe paper and paste on. You may also transform the egg into a house set in a standard and decorated with paint and paper. Glue a roof and chimney of red construction con-struction paper on the egg; make windows and doors of paper and fasten them securely. This egg house may be made the basis of an unusual table centerpiece for Easter. East-er. Erect a tiny village of egg houses on a lawn of Easter paper grass in the midst of a grove of egg trees made from candy eggs decorated deco-rated with bits of paper and mounted on small spools painted brown. (The bottom of each candy egg should be leveled oft to make an even surface for standing on the top of a spool.) Released by Western Newspaper Union. |