How To Blow Out Eggs And String Them On Your Ostereierbaum…

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I love Easter in Germany. It is full of decorations, rituals and get togethers – almost like Christmas but with better weather promising the arrival of spring.

One of my favorite Easter-related traditions especially as a child was and still is decorating eggs. In Germany, this takes place a good couple of weeks before Easter and involves blowing out the contents of the egg through a tiny pin prick in the bottom and the top. The egg shells are rinsed and left to dry. They are then carefully painted by children and grown-ups alike in an array of colors and patterns. And the best is the colored eggs become keepsakes ornaments for years to come. My mom still has eggs we colored from when we were very little.

Once dry, the now colorful painted eggs are threaded and hung up either on a tree outside or on a branch bouquet or Ostereierstrauch inside the house.

Blowing out eggs and decorating them isn’t all that hard. And a big bonus, you don’t have to figure out what you are having for dinner that night! You’ll have a bowl full of egg yolks, ready to scramble. Breakfast for dinner!

Using a pin or a bbq skewer, put a hole in the top and the bottom of the egg. The bottom hole should be a little big bigger, so break up the yolk sac some. Now it’s time to blow out that yolk out.

After you have blown out all the eggs you want hallowed out, you can wash them off and out a bit. You can run them under warm water, drain them and dry them carefully afterwards.

Now you can decorate them! We used water colors and a paint brush just like a did as a child. If you want to submerge them in dye completely, you will need a spoon or something heavy to carefully hold it under since the hallowed out egg tends to float.

We used a piece of a pot scrubber pad and bbq skewer to hold the egg in place and for easy coloring. We also used an empty egg carton to let the finished egg dry.

If you like to hang your colored eggs, here is how to string them. You will need some string or thread (we used natural kitchen cooking twine), toothpicks and scissors.

Cut or break the toothpicks into little chunks and attach a piece of thread long enough for hanging around the piece. Then feed it through the bigger hole on the bottom of the egg. The piece of toothpick with the thread will act like an anchor inside the egg. Tie the thread to hang your egg.

Even though we decided to color the eggs with water colors and a paint brush (a good way to learn hand-eye coordination, the color wheel and how mixing one color with another can create something completely different), there is a host of other ways you can decorate your eggs. But since these are blown eggs, you’ll be able to keep them! So happy coloring!