30 days of Ostara; Day 22

paper ball

four sided ball ornament
If you make egg shapes, not circles, you get nice egg ornaments.

Here's a nice egg shape, and here's another.

 

Here's how to make these little lanterns, in French

3annabah has made a nice panorama egg by quilling
and here's a pretty egg for embroidery - but you could fill it quilling and use as an ornament or card decoration.

"In some early cultures, the nocturnal hare was actually considered a symbol of the moon. In addition to feeding at night, the hare's gestation period is approximately 28 days -- the same as a full lunar cycle. In European folklore, the rabbit connection to eggs is one based on confusion. In the wild, hares nest in what is known as a form -- basically, a nest for bunnies. When the hares abandoned a form, it was sometimes taken over by plovers, who would then lay their eggs in it. The locals would then find eggs in the hare's form."

  Here's how to make these silly felt ornaments - in French

Quite a list of Ostara recipes.
I have to say that I couldn't eat Avgolemono, what ever it tastes. The curdled eggs... brrr....

30 days of Ostara; Day 21

Easter at Aristotle.net

Cute felt birds - lovely for Ostara made of yellow and pastel colored felt, decorated with feathers.

bunny finger puppets

half-eaten gingerbread man... You could make the half-eaten chocolate bunnies. I hate that cartoon. Poor bunnies. But if that kind of humor appeals to you, go ahead and make yourself some half-eaten felt bunnies. You can even cut out the speech bubbles and stitch on the side of the bunnies.

History of the chocolate bunnies
molded chocolate bunnies
Chocolate bunny cake
Chocolate bunny bread

and if you crochet this fellow of chocolate brown yarn, you get an "eternal" chocolate bunny :-)
Here's another one, and here a more traditional, knitted one.

"Ostara is the solar festival that marks the transition from the dark to the light half of the year: day and night are of equal length. On this day, the sun rises due east and sets due west" 
(exactly at 6, everywhere on this planet. I think that's magical.)
 
"Ostara is a celebration of conception, regeneration and the triumph of light over darkness."

"Just as Ostara is a time to sow the seed that will be harvested later in the year, it is also a time to act on new ideas and begin ventures that will grow as the year proceeds. It is the point when, conceptually at least, the sun enters the sign of Aries  and the astrological  cycle begins again. Ostara is a time for renewal, when we should reaffirm our commitment to those things that are important to us and revitalize our journey towards our goals. "

30 days of Ostara; Day 20

Some Easter baking at Joy of Baking. I have to say the chocolates surrounded by the yellows, creams and whites of lemon cakes, coconut cake, white butter cake, pavlova and cheesecake screams Ostara! Couldn't be better...
I'm going to celebrate my birthday about a month after Ostara, and that's the Christian Easter weekend, so I'll be having an Ostara brunch/tea thingy... my only problem is "who will eat all of that?" :-D
It's a Finnish tradition to serve seven kinds of coffee breads, but I have always found it very difficult to limit myself... I will have a chocolate cake, but I think I'll have a marzipan cover with daffodils. I want to make some sugar cookies and bébes, and pashka, and pavlova with yellow fruits, like peaches and passion fruit... and some other things :-D
Like macarons and huge lemon swirl meringues... I don't know what's with me and meringue right now. I'm dreaming of everything meringue. Lemon meringue pie. Sorbet. Perhaps it's the Ostara :-D
And egg pie... I just love egg pie. (Or custard pie, as it's also called.)
Also, there should be some buns. Perhaps I'll make Hot Cross Buns...

When I read "The Story of the Trapp Family Singers" I fell in love with the Easter traditions Maria described. That year (I was about 12) I made a bunch of decorated boughs and on Palm Sunday I walked around our estate and left one bough to each field and forest. I blessed the area waving my "wand" to each direction and asking health and prosperity from Goddess.
It was a very good year, everything we did in the grounds succeeded, and even though it was a rainy summer, we managed to make hay at the exact right week, when it wasn't raining, so we got dry, good quality hay for our sheep that year, when everyone else was swearing over the wet hay... If I remember correctly, we could even sell a bit of the hay in the Spring.
My mother believes firmly that it was because of my little blessing trip, and she still asks if I could do it again.

Here's a list of bird seeds. It's essential to keep feeding the birds at Springtime, because the insects aren't here yet, but the winter seeds have been eaten.

Sharing nest material with wild birds
You can put there pretty much anything - all the strings, yarns and threads that are left over from your crafts, clippings of hair from both human and animals, the hair that's in combs and brushes.

Spring grooming cuts down pet shedding

Very easy origami rooster basket

Make a kusudama ball for Easter

Rose kissing ball

30 days of Ostara; Day 19

Save the shells after breakfast and use them to make candles or seeding pots.

 Fun Ostara crafts

The Pagan Ostara transformed into Two Christian celebrations.

The first is the Annunciation. Ostara is sometimes called the Lady Day, and as Virgin Mary is the Christian Lady, it was natural the Goddess worship part of Ostara was turned into veneration of Virgin Mary. Also as Spring Equinox is 9 months before Yule, it was found appropriate to celebrate the annunciation of the virgin birth. Angel Gabriel comes to tell the news to Mary carrying a white lily, like the Roman youngsters visited their sweethearts in this very day. Accepting the lily was seen as official engagement, and it wasn't unusual that nine months after this visit, the bride gave birth to a baby. The date of Annunciation is 25th of March.

The second is Easter, which adopted its name and symbols, and the rebirth mythology. Combined with the Jewish adaptation of Spring Equinox celebrations; Pesach, we have the Christian Easter. Pesach is no longer attached to Spring Equinox, but falls on Nisan 15th every year. It's always a full moon on Pesach 1st, and usually the full moon after equinox, but sometimes not. The Christian Easter falls on the first Sunday after full moon after Equinox (21.3. as the fixed date according to the Church), so they count their date much more "pagan" :-D

Rice crisp easter eggs? I think I'd prefer a rice crisp treat bunny or chicks... One could make those with the chocolate molds as well. Rice crisp treat Ostara lamb... :-)

The Easter Lamb Cake is a Catholic tradition, and Cake Wrecks is having fun with the more or less horrifying (horrified?) lamb cakes... "lamb fleeces" (it might be interesting to make the fleece of meringues... hmm...) and "lamb-entations". I love Cake Wrecks... please, what ever you do, don't do things like these: "Easter, is that you?".

30 days of Ostara; Day 18

 
Cute scrabble tile ornaments

You can make yourself a lovely, primitive bunny like this, here's the pattern

I have been thinking about a list of movies with Ostara themes, but I can't find anything about "rebirth", "new beginnings", "new start" or "fresh start"... and I find it odd. There are tons of movies with these themes.
But here's a list of movies touching the theme "liberation/freedom". I plan watching them with Ostara in mind and seeing if I can recommend any of them.
I suppose the movies: Sleeping with the enemy, Enough and Double jeopardy might work...
I'm also thinking about Bucket List, 7 things to do before I'm 30; Last holiday (both versions) and It's a wonderful life would do too.
Hook is a great movie about rebirth.
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a day sounds great :-)
Chocolat, absolutely. About changes, beginnings, chocolate and Easter.

I'll work on this :-)

Eccles Cakes
Simnel cake
Making gum paste daffofil
Cinnamon lamb stew yum yum!

Collect empty egg shells so that you can make different egg shell crafts, like this "wisp of spring" garland. Empty eggs before you dye them, because the dye can suffer from the egg blowing process. Have a stick ready so that you can keep the egg shells pushed down the dye, if you wish to dye them. There are many different ways of decorating egg shells.

Crochet egg garland - you can also sew buttons on the ribbon and add a string on the eggs, and alternate different Ostara ornaments in your button ribbon garland.
Also, crochet eggs to be used as they are, and decorate them with embroidery. Really cute :-)

I also like the bunny-egg -paper garland

30 days of Ostara; Day 17

Make geode eggs

make crystal sugar sticks / rock candy

how to make sugar cubes and how to decorate them
The trick is to use only water and confectioner's sugar to make the icing, no egg whites or meringue powder.
(You can also form any figures out of the water-sugar icing, to be used as sugar cubes...)

Here's some Easter teas for you to enjoy and get inspired by:
corgyncombe courant and Tasha Tudor's Hot Cross Buns for Easter Tea
Marisa's Minis Easter Tea Party and
Jama Rattigan's Alphabet Soup of Bonnets and Bunnies, Carrots and Cake

I love these vignettes and displays :-) And I adore the Peter Rabbit carrot cake with marzipan vegetables... The garden looks very rich, moist and lovely :-D

In Sweden there was a tradition, that the night before "Waffle Day" (Our Lady's Day 25th of March) the children put out their shoes or socks so that Crane could fill them with candy and a little present. The present was of practical kind, usually a tool of some sort, or something from faraway countries, where the cranes spent their winters, as a souvenir. Sometimes the presents were in eggs, that the crane would have laid in the shoes or socks.
In some places the date wasn't set, but when the crane arrived to the area, he also visited the houses nearby, leaving presents to the children.
In some families there were also sooty foot prints from the hearth or fireplace leading to the shoes, showing where the crane had walked. Adults were having fun painting crane footprints everywhere, on the walls and ceilings as well. The children then followed the prints to their presents.
It was also a tradition to "run crane", barefeet run 7 or 9 times around the house, and young people ran to throw in letters (either with a joke or sort of Valentine written on) in to their friends' homes. As the fire was put down, the kids used to throw in these letters through the chimney. This naturally happened when the chimneys in houses were still open the whole way down to the fireplace. The youngsters could be dressed as cranes with bags on their feet so that one wouldn't guess who they were by footprints.

Cute candy decoration ideas from Good Housekeeping. I really like the tulips and the liquorice nests :-)

Crochet a Victorian straw basket. You can use anything in stead of straw, for example plastic bags cut into "plarn" or paper yarn, and use pastel colored yarn instead of the brown silk yarn in the pattern.

30 days of Ostara; Day 16

I love poppy seeds in pastries!
In Poland they make this thing called Makowiec for Easter (and other holidays).
I have a recipe of rich poppy seed and chocolate cake.
Here's poppy seed potica - just don't be that scroogy with the filling.
And here, of course, Haman taschen filled with poppy seeds. It is Purim, after all ;-)

In Germany they use to decorate wells for Easter... now THIS is what I'm talking about! :-D

The custom of the Easter fountain (or well) (Osterbrunnen) is an old tradition designed to celebrate the importance of water as a life giver and it is believe that the water that has been blessed on Easter Sunday has special powers. Throughout the year, women collect hollowed eggs, hand paint them and string them together to make colourful garlands that will be used to decorate the villages' central fountains. They also make arches and crowns of evergreen branches decorated with a few eggs and some times with little rabbits as well as roosters or hens. The crowns and arches are usually placed on the tip of the fountain. All these decorations come up a week or so before Easter Sunday and stay on the fountain for about a week after, making the town center a very colourful and festive sight, especially on Saturday's Market with all the vendors stalls around it.

Crafty Crow's Easter crafts for kids and others. There's so much to do there!

E l e m e n t a l   H o m e s c h o o l i n g

All of nature is waking up and growing right now: green stalks springing toward the sun, babies being born, light growing in strength evermore. The season of new beginnings, springtime is the best time of year to begin new projects and bring to life new interests, dreams, desires. We can manifest new intentions just as easily as flowers spring up. Olivia at Ostara Easter tableOstara rushes in spring's element, air--its direction is east. Air can move between people, subtly mixing scents and undercurrents of communication; as wind, air can quickly disperse stagnation. Often symbolized by the sword or blade, air can swiftly cut through to the heart of the matter, or like a tornado, fiercely blow away what we've become over-attached to. Air reminds us to live lightly and let the winds of change flow through us. Air alters our thoughts and blows a fresh breeze through our expectations and ideas, and air rules intellectual facility. Spring is a special time to invite new challenges of the mind into our lives, begin areas of study, consider old problems with a breath of fresh air and concentrate on affecting positive change. Also symbolized by bells or music, air affects sound, scent and methods of communication. Birdsong has returned, flowers release their fresh scents, we can be outdoors and talk and sing freely, and meet different people again. East rules Ostara and springtime, just as east is where the sun rises, giving birth to the new day.

    * meteorology: oxygen, air currents, weather patterns, clouds, wind
    * hot air balloons, aeronautics
    * birds, eggs
    * hatching, birth
    * multiplication, vocabulary, quizzes, riddles, games for quick thinking
      and intellectual facility
    * music, sound
    * aromatics, aromatherapy, sense of smell
    * architecture, homes, nests
    * trees, wood
    * methods of communication, pen pals
    * maps, graphs, organization
    * Asian studies
    * Crafts: kite making, (also:windmills, weather vanes), pysanky/egg decoration, woodwork, incense making

This is from Lady Griddlebones and Celeste Moondancer's Witchcraft 101:Ostara, which I printed 1999.
It doesn't seem to be around anymore, except here, and that looks like no-one's been there for years...It's great information, though, and I'd hate to see it vanish.
Read also the "Rabbits at Her feet" part. It's wonderful :-)

Here's some easter crafts for kids
How to make the sweetest little Easter basket of yogurt cups.