Much to my children’s disappointment, I am not much of a sweet tooth. So I struggle to be inspired to make sweet treats. But I figured we should do some ‘cooking’ for Easter, and this seemed simple enough for my likings. 🙂
They kids had lots of fun making mess with the icing and creating patterns on the Arrowroot biscuits. I just bought ready made icing – because yes, I am that lazy. 🙂 Mini M&Ms and snakes for the stripes.
Inspiration for this project came from Alpha Moms blog. I thought I’d adjust it into an Easter themed project, given it is already that time of year.
All you need is some of the whitish milk or juice cartons. We actually used a cordial bottle for the grass. The stickers on the milk bottle where quite hard to remove and left a sticky residue. I managed to remove this with some mineral turpentine.
Once you have your clean pieces of plastic, draw or as we did, trace your shapes using a black permanent marker (Sharpie etc). Then let the kids colour as desired. Once coloured, cut away the extra plastic and you’re done! They turned out even better than expected.
We attached ours to the windows using double sided tape rather than suction cups.
The girls at All Tizzies Up do love a pom pom or 700! Here is a simple easter wreath they put together using basic craft materials and a pile of pom poms!
The girls at All Tizzied Up had a busy weekend doing Easter craft. Their first creations were these cute little hand made head bands.
Mum has taken step by step photos that do all the explaining themselves.
I’d like to say I came up with this all on my own, but that would be a lie. Ms5 and I made some owls inspired by this post from Kerrys Craft Blog. It was from this concept that I came up with these easter Chicks. I thought the fact you can hold eggs or treats in them was ideal for an easter craft project.
All you need is some coloured paper, cardboard rolls, tape and glue. You can make them just as cute without the feathers, goggly eyes and pipe cleaners, but if you have some of those handy, you could use them like we did too. The main difference between these and the owls is that the top and bottom folds are in opposite directions to each other, so the head comes to a peak in the middle rather than making two ears like the owls have. The rest of the instructions can be found by running your curser over or clicking on the photos below.
While we did the Tie Dying, I also started experimenting with a few other methods of colouring eggs using a home made dye using ingredients that almost everyone has already in their kitchen. These were some of the results;
These are obviously pretty straight forward. Dyed in a food colouring/vinegar/warm water mixture. Then a scrap booking embelishment stuck on. Would have preferred embellishments without the clear plastic behind them, but the craft shop didn’t have any like that and you can’t really tell from a distance anyway.
I love how these turned out. Just use leaves from the garden, lay over the eggs then cover with a stocking or pantyhose. I actually used some stocking I had on hand and didn’t even need to ruin them in the process. Dip dye for a few minutes and you’re done.
Crepe paper results
We actually discovered this dying method accidentally. After we had finished the Tie Dying from a previous post, we placed the eggs on this pre shredded crepe paper. Some of the eggs still had a bit of water in them from the boiling process, so when that ran out and wet the paper, the colour transferred onto the eggs! So I took it a step further, wet a hand full and covered them in it. The results are pretty cool I think!
The dying solution we used was 3 parts hot tap water to one part vinegar, with as much food colouring as you wanted, we only used about a teaspoon per large cup.
Some of the other patterns we created can be seen below.
Another very wet weekend has resulted in craft overload in this house. Today we made some little chickens. We will call them Easter Chicks, but they could really just be birds and would still be just as cute! All we used was some small styrofoam balls, paint, google eyes a pack of feathers and a few different glues and double sided tape. Oh, and some of those pre stuck felt shapes. First we put the balls on a skewer to hold them up to paint. The paint, like everything at the moment, took forever to dry, even under the ceiling fan. Then we added the eyes and beaks. It was a bit of trial and error with the glue, as some glue dissolves the styrofoam. But we got there eventually, with some scrap booking glue.
Glue on eyes.
For the beak, we just cut off petals from a foam flower sticker (which you will see further on). We used several different methods to make the wings. For thicker wings I folded over a feather from the centre, and secured both sides together with some double sided tape. This worked well, but was a lot of fiddling around and you could see the tape through some, which I was not happy with. Others I just cut away one side of the feather, to make it more a wing shape. Then for the crazy birds I just stick the feathers straight in the side, to make them look like they were running. Way cute! Twisted some pipe cleaners to make legs and we were done.
Ms 4 wanted to make a nest for them, so I grabbed some sugar cane mulch and let her build one outside, she then sprinkled a few flowers around which I thought was a great idea, so told her to get more.
The coloured eggs are from another project we did this weekend, I will post more on them tomorrow. They finished it off nicely though I think.
Bubble painting is nothing new for toddlers and preschoolers, but we have never done it at home and I thought it would create a cute finish for some paper eggs.
Most people will have all this stuff lying around the house, so its a cheap activity too. Dish washing liquid, food colouring, drinking straws, paper (in this case egg shapes) a bowl and a splash of water. I just Google Image searched ‘easter eggs’ and found some egg shapes, copied into Word, adjusted the size and printed. Could have drawn them myself, but I was being lazy. The bigger 2 kids helped cut some out and I cut out the rest. The mixture is equal parts water, food colouring and detergent, you can use more water, but the less you use the more vibrant colours are achieved. Then the fun begins!
Yellow bubbles.
Simply blow the bubbles so they rise well above the sides of the bowl then place the paper flat on top. You may need to tip your bowl slightly to keep the straw submerged. Be sure to place the paper as quickly as possible. The bubbles will actually last quite a while if untouched, but the colour drops to the bottom quickly, so the longer you wait the less colour will transfer to the paper.
Samples of our creations.
Once dried (on a dry day they would only take a few minutes to dry, but due to never ending rain in Sunny Queensland, they took a lot longer) we attempted to punch holes in the top to string them up with, but due to the moisture in the air, the paper just can’t get crisp enough to punch as such, so we stuck small sections of straw to the back with sticky tape. This actually worked out really well, as it meant they face forwards rather than side ways all the time. We used some more coloured straws (cut into 3rds) to space the eggs out then alternated sizes along the way.
And there you have it. Its hard to take a photo of, but its really pretty. Currently hanging in the hallway. If the sun ever comes out again, I will take a photo of it in natural light to bring out the colours better.
In Australia, Easter in my experience at least, is all about chocolate eggs. The only time I decorated an egg was in grade 3, for a decorating competition. But apparently in other parts of the world its just what you do at Easter time. A friend showed me this idea and I just had to give it a go! I rushed out to the local Op shops that afternoon and fumbled through a rack of ties trying to find any that were 100% silk (they must be 100% silk, polyester will not work). One shop charged $1 each and the other wanted up to $5 each, I told them they were dreaming and talked them down to $2.
$20 worth of Op shop pure silk ties
You can do this with boiled eggs, but I wanted to be able to keep them for future years or at least future craft projects. So rather than using whole eggs, we blew the eggs. That was a challenge in its self, but once I got the hang of it, I cleared out a dozen eggs and away we went. Cut the stitching at the back of the tie so you can open it up, remove any lining and cut a piece big enough to cover your egg. Making sure the dark side (what was once the outside of the tie) is against the egg. Secure with a twist tie or as I did, rubber bands as tight as possible without breaking the egg. You want as much surface contact as you can get. I then removed the excess fabric to make putting on the second layer easier.
All wrapped up tight in the first layer (print facing egg)
Then wrap a layer of plain fabric (I used some flannel and calico I had in the scrap fabric bag) and secure again with another band. Fill a saucepan with water and half a cup of vinegar (I didn’t measure, but would have used more than half a cup of white vinegar) and bring to the boil. Different directions state different cooking times, from 5 minutes to 20, I went with closer to 20 minutes. Then the exciting part!
Love the colours and patterns in this one.
Remove from the water and allow to cool. Remove fabric and discover what you have created! Don’t forget to blow out the water that may have ended up inside again if you used hollow eggs. Out of the 11 we made, 3 didn’t work at all. I can’t say for sure, but I think they were ‘fake 100% silk’ ties those ones!
Easter egg decorating
So, looks like we are having scrambled eggs and omelettes for dinner tonight.
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