Easter must do's or dyes

If you live in the good old USA then you have to dye eggs for Easter. So we did. I had never done this until Lily came along and I can't say I particularly enjoy it. Each year I try and find a different way to do it. Last year we did the silk dyed eggs a la Martha Stewart. They were very pretty but time consuming and not a lot of fun for the girls. One day last week I found an article all about dyeing eggs with Post It Notes. The eggs looked really pretty and the whole process seemed very easy. Easy enough in fact that Rosie could do them by herself. Lily also requested that we do some of the plain old Paas Egg Dye Kit ones, so we did. I think she was concerned that I was going to get all "Pinterst" on her and it wouldn't be fun so she wanted something she could crawl under the table with and do by herself. Hah, was she ever wrong. The Post It Note ones are the simplest ever and she loved them.

Yes, I did take a photo of the eggs because I thought this would be the last time I saw them in one piece.

We made post it note cut-outs in lots of colours and shapes

Lily's traditional egg dye

The cut outs on the eggs.....so simple

Rosie's favourite egg

Lily decorating

All done. Much less mess and much more fun.

Rosie took it upon herself to Post-It the kitchen whilst waiting for her eggs to dry but I must say it's a lot easier to clean up sticky notes than dye! Hope your Easter is HOPPY.

Spring cupcakes

Lily's new friends mum is a graduate of a culinary school. If she bakes cookies you drool at the sight of them, if she bakes cakes you just sort of want to dive in head first, well I do. Of course it doesn't hurt that she is also an extremely artsy crafty person as well. When we were at the pool the other day she casually she showed me some photos of a couple of her cakes, they were really gorgeous.

I decided to try something this morning with the girls, a little less, creative but fun and Easter/Springish none the less. Rosie immediately piped up in her horrified voice, "ohhh, you are copying Mari", which just made me giggle.The only common element in them was the use of Peeps. The girls had loads of fun and were really quite creative and they definitely ingested enough sugar to last them a whole week.

The end result is really cute but I have no idea what on earth I am going to do with all these little chickadees. I think we will be heading off to the neighbours that we know and wishing them a happy Spring and sharing some of the sugar cos they just can't stay here!

The funniest part was when I realised that I only had one box of Peeps and we needed 24. Without the girls noticing I went to my Easter stash and grabbed another box. Rosie suddenly realised and wanted to know where they came from. Lily just said, Mummy always hides candy in the house for herself, don't you know that yet!

The colours are really off today not sure what happened. Oh well they taste fine even if they look iffy in the photos.

Oh Dear

Do you remember the Love Tree that we made for Valentines day? It came out so nice and I couldn't wait to make the Easter one. I should have waited. It came out looking like vomit! And that's being kind!

We had fun doing it but even as they painted and decorated the wooden eggs things weren't coming together colourwise. Something just wasn't quite right. I wasn't feeling it but I didn't say anything. I thought it was just my OCD and maybe it was cos the kids loved it.

One thing I do love is the seed pod that Lily picked up on our walk to gather the twigs that I suggested she turn into a little sign that says Happy Easter.

Maybe I had really big visions i my head and nothing could have lived up to them.

It's the fun factor that really counts and we had lots of that. Maybe the birthday trees that are sprouting in my mind will work out better. On second thoughts maybe I should squelch them now!

Lily's Happy Easter Sign

Hard at work

oh the concentration

Could be St Pattys day with that colour
Lily's pretty bow
The barf tree



Don't worry, they don't read this unless I want them to see something. By they time they do they'll laugh too.