CHINESE DECORATION FOR EASTER EGGS.
By S. K. B.
DIAGRAMS OF DECORATIONS FOR EASTER EGGS.
YOU should select a good-sized egg, and of a rich dark color. I have found that eggs laid by the Brahma hens are just about the right shade for pleasing effect.
First make an opening in the large end and drop out the contents of the shell. Then with your pencil trace lightly on the shell some features as in fig. 1. Next paint the whites of the eyes with solid white, and the lips a bright vermilion. Then go over your outlines with black paint or India ink, filling the eyeball with black. Use water-color paints.
Now we have a showy-looking Chinaman, but he has no cap on; neither does he wear the national pigtail. To supply the first of these necessary articles, you will cut a piece of bright-colored paper after the fashion of fig. 2. If you please, you can decorate it with a heavy line of black paint. Its pieces 1, 2, 3 and 4, are to be bent tightly up at the dotted line, so as to receive a decided crease. Then each one may be touched with stiff paste, slipped within the shell and fastened. Then the strip must be pasted together at A and B, drawing one end over the other far enough to make the cap fit well.
To make the pigtail, take some black silk twist and make a braid about four inches long, and about as thick as single zephyr worsted. Tie one end with a bit of thread, and paste the other end on the top of the back part of the head. This you will do before you fasten the cap on. Now our Chinaman is finished—and when you have hung him up by a silken ribbon pasted inside of his cap, he will look very much like fig. 3, and he can be made to hold popcorn or any light candy.
