Easter Cascaroñes!
6:54 PM
When I was a little girl early March meant one thing: saving up as many egg shells as possible to make cascaroñes for Easter. In South Texas and Mexican border towns, cascaroñes are decorated egg shells filled with confetti and typically busted over your head, showering you with confetti. If someone was really gunning for you, they'd smash the egg directly on your head and make sure confetti penetrated deep into your hair.
I thought it would be fun to make a few cascaroñes with Nicco and show him a little glimpse of my childhood and one of my favorite Hispanic traditions. Cascaroñes actually originated in China, and were brought to Europe by Marco Polo. When the trend arrived in Mexico, locals began filling them with confetti for Carnival. Hispanics along the border began using them to celebrate Easter because they felt the hollow eggs represented an empty tomb and the resurrection of Christ. It's said that having one broken over your head brings good luck!
Making cascaroñes is very simple. The most difficult part is saving up the egg shells and getting the egg and yolk out with out making gigantic holes in them. I just poked a hole in the eggs with a fork and used the fork to pry pieces of egg away until I had a small, round hole at the top. Carefully wash the shells and let them air dry.
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To decorate and fill them you'll need: egg shells (we used to save dozens when I was a kid!), tissue paper (cut into small circles), glue, confetti, and your medium of choice to decorate them. The sky is the limit! You can dye them, paint them, cover them in sequins, dress them up and draw faces on them... get creative! I used Prismacolor pencils and a silver metallic sharpie.
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Once you've decorated your eggs, fill them with as much confetti as you'd like (the more, the messier!), run a small amount of glue around the opening of the egg, and place a small circle of tissue paper over the top of the opening to seal it. Allow the glue to dry completely.
I wanted my Easter Eggs to be a complete DIY, so I recycled hole punch scraps and some packing paper to make my own confetti mix. I used some leftover silver tissue paper from the holidays to cover the holes, but you can use newspaper as well.
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Do you like my bunny egg? He even has a cotton ball tail! Nicco decorated the two colorful eggs at the bottom...
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Nicco thought my confetti eggs were hilarious and let me crack one over his head for demonstration purposes, hehe. (Note: confetti filled eggs are definitely an outdoor activity). I can't wait to crack open the rest on Easter Sunday! Do you have any Easter traditions?
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