Pearl Cross for Easter

One more quick idea for your Easter decor or brunch:
I saw these papier mache eggs at the craft store and couldn't resist a simple transformation:First came two coats of aqua acrylic paint to each one. Then I super-glued some pearl beads into a cross shape. I have a set of little pewter vases, so I cut some pieces of white ribbon to lay across the top as a finishing touch.
I also have to give a "shout out" to the fun girls at Hallmark Coach House Gifts:Where I did a signing last Saturday for my Simply Inspiring collection:They were so sweet! Thank you!

Spring + Easter Wreath

My spring wreath received a little "Happy Easter" embellishment this weekend:Since my front door is protected from the elements, I don't have to worry about waterproofing whatever I put on it. I, as usual, chose a quick solution for turning my wreath into holiday decor. I printed "Happy Easter" on a pink and cream toile patterned paper, then glued that onto a pink cardstock with allowance for a border:
A little hole punched at the top and strung with pale green string. I added some silver beads to the ends of the string, but that's about all the time I had for this year! :-)

"Jesus!" Easter Eggs

Celebrate Easter with this "Jesus!" display:Coloring eggs for Easter to celebrate new life in Jesus is a classic tradition. I thought it'd be fun to do a batch with my kids this weekend - to test an idea I had of using letter stickers:
Coloring Easter Eggs: Natural Dye Tutorial
After boiling 6 eggs, I dried them and adhered the letter stickers:
I tried natural ingredients - a first for me - to make my dyes. I googled to find a list of options. I started with blueberries. I heated a small handful of fresh blueberries with a bit of water and white vinegar. Then I strained it into about 1/2 cup hot water:
Next I tried cooking some spinach for green. I learned you'd need A LOT of spinach :-) to get a good green, as you can see mine looks more like pale yellow: My third choice was to be red/pink using cranberry juice ... but this ingredient ended up coloring the eggs brown. I took the one I had in the "green" and gave it a second bath in the blueberry to turn it aqua. Here are our eggs cooling and drying:
I really liked the mottled finish on my eggs, although you may try wiping them a bit for a more even finish. Lastly, I removed the letter stickers to see if my technique worked:Yeah!!!! It did! :-) The kids thought this was pretty fun, so we'll color eggs again ... I think I'll do the kind where they color on them with crayons first! :-) AND we'll try some other ingredients so my daughter can get her pink eggs! Although she really liked the blueberry dye because it looked purple.

Ready, Set, Spring!!!

The flowers of Spring are looking glorious!
The kids and I have enjoyed spotting new colors popping up around town.
With the new season comes some wardrobe assessment, right? If you have kids like me, you pull out last year's clothes and see what still fits. And, if your kids are little like mine, you'll find not much does. :-) So, what to do with the old stuff ....... Ebay? Craig's list? Donate? Some girls from my kids' play group have been chatting up an idea for a clothes exchange. Within our group, or maybe all the MOPS from our church. With the economic situation many of us are facing, a little passing around of clothes might be a real blessing. We haven't formulated a concrete game plan, yet, but I just went thru my daughter's spring/summer clothes from last year and bagged up quite a bit. I must admit I'm a tad sad to part with some of the adorable sun dresses, but we have a little friend just a bit younger and smaller with parents in a financial crunch and we hope they'll be just right for her.

I'm sure many of you have done exchanges/donations in the past. Have any tips for us? What are you going to do with the "too smalls" in your kids' closets? Does your church have a "clothes bank?" Please share your ideas in the comments! Thanks!!

Ideas for Easter

Happy March! Spring is here! Easter is coming up on April 12th this year, so let's start celebrating! Today I'm going to refer you to a couple of my '08 posts on this Holiday .... since probably few of you were here in my first weeks of blogging! :-)

I used a Feather Tree instead of a tree branch and crosses in lieu of eggs for this creation:

Quick & easy Easter Place Cards:

Simple, rustic Wire Cross Embellishment:Click on the links to see the full posts. And to check out all my Easter ideas to date, go here, or click on the "Easter" label under topics in the right hand column of my blog. Enjoy!