Friday, April 6, 2012

Easter Eggs, Hoppy Tulips, and Thumbprint Flowers

Even though I'm a little late to the party on the egg decorating front I had to share the little creations we made this week. 

Mini Disclaimer: Some {ok, most} of the pictures are from my cell, so the colors aren't as vibrant as they are in real life. 


This year is the first time Mads has really been able to participate in holidays, and this one is proving to be almost as amazing to her as Christmas was. 

She's ecstatic that the Easter Bunny is coming to her house. 
Thrilled that he likes carrots as much as she does.
Giddy at the fact that we got to decorate the eggs that our chickens leave us everyday. 
And she's beyond excited that the Bunny is going to hide her Easter Eggs for her to find. 
Ohhhh to be almost 3 years old again!

I have been meaning to break out the eggs and dye all week and never had a chance until today. Time is something I don't have much of lately but I still wanted to try something new for our eggs this year. Earlier in the week I found this tutorial for Salad Dressing Easter Eggs on ADozenGirlz and fell in love! I'll spare you the major details since she describes how to make them so well, and to save me a few minutes of typing :) The only thing I didn't do was use the Wilton Colors that she used in her tutorial, I used plain 'ole food coloring in neon colors. The short of it - SUPER easy. SUPER cute. SUPER inexpensive. How can you beat vinegar, olive oil, food coloring and water? The shiny, marbled effect you end up with is so pretty and different. I love them!


To keep it frugal we made egg dippers out of some copper wire we had lying around, used mason jars to hold the hot dye liquid, and plain old egg cartons flipped upside down as a drying rack. 
Our eggs of choice - white and blue hardboiled {yes, my chickens lay blue eggs :)}.


I did get a tad more creative than just dipping and popped some designs on a few of the eggs. My trusty hole punch, some adhesive vinyl {contact paper works too} gave me the WOW factor I was looking for on short notice. For those of you with Silhouettes or Cricuts, the possibilities would be endless! I can only imagine the awesomeness...


I decided on polka dots, stripes, and a chevron egg that didn't come out well enough for photos {can't win 'em all!}. It's simple enough to do -  just stick your shapes to the egg, make sure all the air bubbles are out, then pick your dye color.

For the Punkin' we used vinyl letter stickers that I had on hand to make her name.



I also got creative with a little centerpiece for my table. I saw all these super cute Peep centerpieces floating around Pinterest and just HAD to have one. A florist I'm not, but I must say I think it came out cute!


And of course, what would a new season and holiday be without hand and thumbprint art? Of course you remember Maddy's Fall Masterpiece? Well, this time we went for a pretty spring flower bouquet to match my Peeps centerpiece. Hands for the stems and thumbs for the petals.


We made these bouquets into pictures and cards to give the grandparents for Easter Sunday. It's become tradition that each year they receive a homemade hand print from Mads, they love it! And, I don't know about you but I could stare at little handprints all day long, they melt me.

I hope you all have a great Easter if I don't catch you before then ;)

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