We read that the decorating of Easter eggs came about in the 13th century, when the church prohibited eating of eggs during Holy Week. They couldn’t stop chickens from laying however.

How to identify those “Holy Week” eggs after the fact? Paint em’!

Soon the eggs, which were already an ancient symbol of new life emerging, became a symbol of the Easter.

It’s not too late to decorate an egg or two. You can do it the usual way by submerging hard-boiled eggs in a bowl of vinegary colored dye. But we’re wondering why not view an egg shell as a blank canvas, and draw or paint right on it? (Be sure to hard boil the eggs first).

Here are some pictures and resources, including basic info about how to dye eggs with paste or liquid food coloring, and what we think is the amazingly red dye that an old Greek lady we knew used to make deeply red Greek eggs (we haven’t tested it…or this method for making those deep red eggs using onions skins), and…

…a geeky binary egg:

…and a cool abstract egg painted with markers.

We dig the idea behind these ostrich eggs that were masked off in a pattern with tape – a stencil, really -and then spray painted. Why not spray paint  eggs! (Pretty weird picture though…)

You could gold-leaf an egg…

Egg painted with a fish via Creative Commons License.
Binary egg via Creative Commons License.
Abstract egg via Creative Commons License.
Spray-painted ostrich eggs via Creative Commons License.