The Easter bonnets and Easter bunnies

The Easter Bonnet.

Sadly my girls are getting a little old for Easter bonnets. So I've gone back through old photos to find our Easter hats/bonnets which the girls have made over the years. Our Easter Bonnets always had a very handmade look to them.

• We start with Phoebe in 2002 (above left), these big ears were made at pre-school and they were worn around the Sydney Easter show ALL DAY.
• Next is Emily in 2003 (above middle), she was in Year 2 and this was her hat for the Easter hat parade at school - real chocolate eggs dangled from the hat in true Aussie-style on a very hot day!
• Phoebe in 2004 in her 'hat' made in Kindergarten. Eggs, bunnies and fluffy chicks. (above right)

• Bunnies and girls sometime in 2004 (above left).
• Phoebe with her fluffy chicks hat in 2005. I think this hat is the same one used by Emily in 2003.
• Phoebe in 2006, she was in Year 2, her last year for an Easter hat parade at school. This hat was decorated with her own designs of bunnies and eggs, and finished with rick rack.

I'm sure there are more hats, but these are just from the digital images I have on our computer, I haven't gone back through our film photos.

We did make Easter bonnets this year... for the bunnies. Emily found these cute little cowboy hats, and they were a perfect bunny size. The ideas we used for these hats could be easily adapted to a slightly larger version if you wish.

Here are the little hats.

We wrapped ribbon around the hat, holding it with double-sided tape. Then pierce a small hole in the centre front of the hat, and use a brad to hold the fabric flowers in place. Attach fluffy chick. Our chicks kept falling off, so I would suggest using a hot glue gun, place a small amount of glue on the chicks feet, and attach to the hat.

And here are our Easter bunny photos.

Bubbles and Butterscotch were initially reluctant to model for their Easter photo shoot, turning their little cotton tails towards us.

But Bubbles did come through with some nice modeling poses for the camera.

She couldn't decide which hat she preferred.

Butterscotch did not cooperate at all. She wore her bonnet and then lay on the grass and did not move.

Here's one photo we really liked, no Easter bonnet though.

Marty couldn't help get in on the act also.

Rachel Richter has a very, very cute idea on her blog for Easter cards. You have to go take a peek. This is such a clever idea.

I'd like to wish you all a happy Easter. I'm taking a small break from blogging for the long weekend. Thank you for visiting and commenting. I will choose the RAK winners early next week if that's OK.

HAPPY EASTER

Cheers

Fiona

x

Easter {cooking} project #4

I'm moving away from Easter craft projects for one post. This is an Easter cooking project.

Easter Egg {surprise} Cupcakes

Make your cupcake mixture. Place mixture into cupcake tins.

Place a small solid chocolate Easter egg in the middle. You do not have to cover the egg with mixture.

Bake. As the cupcakes rise in the cooking process, they cover the chocolate egg. Here is a photo taken from oven cam about half way through the cooking time.

Now while I was waiting for the cupcakes to cook I thought I'd take some photos of my other cupcakes baked by Bacio Beads, Lovelinks and Bijoux.

Here's the baked cupcakes, and the chocolate eggs are now safely hidden inside the cupcakes.

Decorate the cupcakes with icing and eggs or little fluffy chicks (just make sure you remove the fluffy chick from the cake before taking a bite.) And when the cupcakes are being eaten a nice chocolate eggy surprise will be discovered inside each one.

 

Emily had some friends from her new high school over on the weekend, and they decorated cupcakes for afternoon tea.

I must thank Mel, who sent me the gorgeous Easter egg patty papers which you can probably just see in the photos. They were so gorgeous and made our cupcakes very special!

And make sure you visit Mel's blog, she has some more Easter crafting ideas over there. I love the Easter bunting she's made, very clever.

And lastly for this post, thank you to everyone who has been visiting during the last few weeks, and for all the links back to my Easter crafting posts. I really do appreciate the fact that people are reading.

I was asked by Georgie in a comment if my Easter ribbon is for sale over at Ribbons Galore. Yes, it is over in the Easter ribbon collection. (the carrots and the eggs which Mel used in the bunting). If you'd like to win some, leave me a comment and I'll choose a few winners.

Till next time.

Cheers

Fiona

Easter craft project #3 and a DCM challenge card

The mid week challenge over at the Daring Cardmakers blog is "These are a few of my favourite things" set by Mel. We had to use one of Mel's favourite things on our card (embroidery cotton/thread, buttons, felt or fabric) and combine it with one of our own favourite things.

This is the card I made.

I thought it would make another good Easter project, so here we go...

Materials: Urban Lily Secret Keeper Cards, pattern paper (I've used new Paper Salon KN Easter Sorbet paper), cardstock, embellishments (felt ribbon, buttons, flowers, brads, etc) and greetings stamp for the inside of the card (I've used some new Paper Salon Easter stamps which I've just received).

Just case you haven't seen them, this is what an Urban Lily Secret Keeper card looks like when it's open. They are very versatile, but I find they make fun interactive cards.

1.  Cut an oval/egg shape from pattern paper. Make sure it will cover the UL Secret Keeper card if you are using one, or that it covers whatever base card you will be putting this on. If you are using pattern paper, you may wish to back it with some cardstock to make the card a little more sturdy. I've cut another egg shape from yellow cardstock. Glue the paper and cardstock together.

2. Cut the egg in half. I've used a zig-zag line to {hopefully} resemble a cracked egg on my finished card. See my other sample below where I've just cut straight across the egg.

3.  Embellish the egg. I've used felt ribbon which I've attached to the egg by sewing buttons onto the egg and have used brads through the felt flowers.

Make sure your cracked egg can still 're-join' when the card is closed. I actually removed the larger green flowers (third row from the top) and left the smaller ones, as my egg wasn't closing properly.

4.  Stamp your greeting to the inside of the UL Secret Keeper Card. As the surface of the card is shiny, use StazOn ink. I've just received this gorgeous little Easter stamp set from Paper Salon, so was very keen to use it.

Add some colour with doodling. I've used Sharpie pens for this, again they are a permanent marker suitable for shiny surfaces.

5.  Turn your egg over, matching the two sides. Position the closed Urban Lily Secret Keeper card and glue in place. Leave the glue to dry before opening and closing the card.

And it's finished. Here it is closed...

and opened.

This is another Easter egg card which I made. This was a bit simpler. I cut the egg in half and added flowers around the edge before gluing to the Urban Lily Secret Keeper card.

And this one open.

Thanks for visiting. Hope you're having a great week.

Tamar has suggested I make Easter bonnets next... mmm will have to see if I have enough time before Easter.

Till next time.

Cheers

Fiona

Easter craft project #2

The next Easter project has hatched....

Project: Little Felt Easter Egg Bags

These are very quick and easy felt bags which can hold several little chocolate eggs. You can obviously make them bigger or smaller depending upon your chocolate easter egg needs :-)) Materials used: felt, embroidery thread and ribbon.

1.  Cut two pieces of felt. My pieces were about 10.5cm x 14.5cm. They were this size as I was able to cut four pieces from a small piece of felt (the size which is sold in craft stores).

2.  Cut four slits into each piece of felt, approximately 3cm - 4cm from the top edge.

These become the slits for threading the ribbon in a later step.

3.  Sew around three edges of the bag. You can use running stitch or blanket stitch.

4.  Now thread a length of ribbon through the slits around the whole bag.

5.  Bring the ends of the ribbon through to the outside of the bag.

6.  Fill bag with chocolate Easter eggs.

7.  Pull the ribbon tightly to close bag and wrap the ribbon round the bag to the opposite side.

8.  Tie a bow with the ribbon.

That's all there is to it. These would be easy for the kids to make too.

Now the RAK which I mentioned a couple of posts ago. I had three ladies leave me links to their easter projects. They were:

1. Sophia decorated her chocolate Easter eggs.
2. Trishia covered her eggs with tissue paper.
3. Mel has also shared some decorated eggs and a very cute bunny.

I'm going to send out a pack of ribbon to you ladies. If you'd like to email me with your favourite colour/s and I'll try to accommodate you with some ribbons.

Hope you have a great week, and I'll be back with another Easter project very soon.

Cheers

Fiona

PS: the bunnies have had their photo shoot, but Marty bear kept stealing their Easter hats. Will post some photos when I've sorted through them.

Daring Cardmakers card

I am very happy to join the lovely ladies over at the Daring Cardmakers Blog this week as a guest designer. The theme for this weeks dare is "Take a Break!". The dare involves creating a card incorporating a tea bag or coffee satchel.

Visit the DCM blog to see the fabulous creations of the designers. If you'd like to take part in the dare this week, create a card and post a comment at the DCM blog, I'd love to see what you create. Here's the card I created for the dare. I've actually put two tea bags on my card... I think a cup of tea always tastes better when enjoyed with a friend!

Materials used: Alphabet stickers by Arctic Frog, Ribbons Galore ribbons.

Thank you to everyone who has visited here over the past week. I'll be back soon with a few more Easter projects, and I'll be choosing the RAK as well (see post below, if you'd still like to take part).

Hope you have a great weekend.

Cheers

Fiona

x