Easter in our Home 2012

I know many of you have moved on by now and yes I know I am  slow recording our family life this Easter, but hey, that's just how it is. So this is the last of my Easter posts for this year ......I promise.

The pictures above are ones I drew for our sons who were not able to have Easter with us. Drawing is really a new creative pursuit for me and I rarely get to do any, but I do enjoy it when I have a chance. Obviously I am still learning though.

I do enjoy decorating our home for these special days and am very blessed to have the older children who are happy to be a part of this process. They work with me and we do all the decorating together, that way building memories both in the time spent together and the decorative process. In fact if not for the children's help these days I don't think I would have the energy to get it all done.

As it was I did not get to bed until 4:45am on Easter morning after the last thing was done......namely filling the Easter bags with the chocolate.
We did consider not having virtually any chocolate this year to avoid the after effects of all that sugar from the chocolate. However when you do the dollar comparison of what we could give chocolate wise to what we could afford to give  them say a book and a small gift like wise it just does not work out for us. And frankly I think our children love the fact they get a chocolate haul for Easter as it is the only time of year they get a modest amount all of their own, ie no sharing.

We try to use our seasons table to display  items  that represent the season or celebration we are, well, celebrating and so we  put all these on to remind us of what Easter is really about.

One of my favourite decorating parts is the fact the crown of thorns becomes a crown of beauty.

This year we used sour hearts to replace the good deeds beads

Our egg tree this year had  a nice lot of 'new life' not only with the eggs and all they represent  but the leaves from a wattle tree.

Of course  someone just HAD to make a silk nest for the bunny and his eggs along with all those Alleluia's

Our peg people with the tomb. Of necessity for the children is the hanging of Judas......
Each year the children look forward to this part of the setting up of the tomb!

We were using our Betty Lukins Felt scenes this year and we just need to remember to use it more during the year. The only problem is that is very large to leave up full time.

This year I was very frugal in the buying of chocolates for the children and frankly after a couple of months Grain 'n' Sugar FREE the small amount we had, in comparison to some years was even too much in regards to the children's response to it.

The Easter table set for breakfast with each persons personal Easter basket and Felt Pocket Egg

Trahearn's first Easter  and looking into his Easter Bag

The Easter Basket with all the items from it

Our traditional Easter family photo. Of course Kynan and Braedon are both missing/
This is our first incomplete family photo of cause new babies don't count...........

These were our Caterpillars we put into our Easter baskets on Holy Saturday by each of us before we make the Resurrection cookies

And there you have it, our Easter (well some of it anyway) in a nutshell, to be sure a large nutshell indeed, but finished for another year at least.

I pray your own celebration of this special time was one of great joy and peace!

Blessings to you and your homes,
 

Felt Pocket Eggs - Tutorial

Each year for our Easter table I make a small individual gift for our family to keep in our Memories box.
This year I made these felt pocket eggs.

Supplies Needed~
felt of various colours
embroidery floss three strands in various colours
scissors, pins and needle

They are fairly quick to make and make a lovely gift. For my cutting our I used pinking shears to give a nice decorative edge, but again you could just use regular scissors.

First off you need to choose colours you are happy with and either contrasting or similar embroidery thread.
Cut our an egg shape (or even an oval you can trim it to shape later) in two colours one slightly smaller than the other.
Then cut our another decorative shape to sew on top

Pin this to the top piece and sew the decorative shape on.
You can hand sew or machine sew and use whatever stitch you like.
I used a simple running stitch as I had 16 of them to do and wanted to do it quickly, but if I had a lot of time I would use button hole stitch.

Once this is completed you need to cut a slit above this for the pocket. I used small embroidery scissors and did a wave pattern cut for most of ours. This allow you to put an object within the pocket without tearing the fabric.
At this stage the Egg pocket is almost complete.
Simple place the other piece underneath in a position you are happy with and sew them together.
Once sewn on, again in whatever stitch yo  like you can trim to suit yourself.

 Now it is time to fill your pocket with your favour of choice.

 For ours this year I used home made chocolates that we had made into Easter shapes and  wrapped into cellophane and tied with ribbon or embroidery floss.

The first four I made and filled with home made chocolates

The rest of the bunch ready to put with our Easter baskets

So once again a nice and easy craft for either Easter or even Spring. Even young children could do this so very nicely.

Blessings to you and your homes,
 

Alleluia, Alleluia.....Christ is Risen.....Alleluia

May the blessings of the Risen Christ be with each of you today and all those you love.

May God give you peace and joy in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and His great love for us.

May this day be forever in your hearts as we live our lives as... 'Easter people'

Blessings to you and your homes,
 

'Crack Me' Eggs - Tutorial

 

The last few years we have really, really enjoyed making these 'crack me' eggs. We found the idea here and it is, one, probably the most popular activity prior to Easter. We usually do them during Holy Week and have been doing them over the last three days (Since starting this post we have completed them)
What are they you ask?
Well simply put they are  dyed eggshells filled with chocolate, lollies and/or toys and sealed at the bottom with cup cake paper.

WE simply used a knife to make a crack at the bottom or top of the eggs and emptied our eggs out to use later. I made custard and frittata with ours.
Then weI carefully rinsed out each eggshell. Eden was a great help with this part and she used a finger to scrape away the last bit of the egg white that is attached inside.
Then we filled a pot with water and submerged them in it. Then we brought it to the  to a boil. Once boiled we lowered  the heat and simmered for 10 minutes. You do need to skim any  foam from the top as it appears.
We cooled them by carefully rinsing them and put them on a draining rack on top of the stove and let them dry.

For our dye we can only use red as we only have brown eggs and not white and so can not use any pastel colours for this. However if you have white eggs you can create a variety of colours with this.
For the container above we used two cups of just boiled water and 4 tablespoons of vinegar, as we are not precise in colour we just poured our red food colouring in till we were happy with the colour.
Do not use a metal container or plastic for this part of the process, and do not stir them in the dye as they become splotchy..
We let them soak for five minutes and turned them over for another five.

We then prepared an area to dry the dyed eggs on. Skewers into the top of an egg carton works well and we use on to lift it out of the dyed water and place back into the egg carton to dry.

Vellvin really wanted to do them this year and  was very diligent.

However she got tired of wearing the gloves and ended up with a dyed red hand, which she really wasn't worried about.

Our eggs drying.

OK, so when your eggs are dried you get to fill them.
We put all ours inside that egg carton you had the skewers sticking out of and put our choice of lollies on plates. As we  are avoiding wheat filled lollies that really restricted our choice of fillings
Of course you could put small toys or home made little items in instead of chocolate.

So we have milk, white and dark chocolate drops and chocolate sultanas.

Then each of the children had a turn at filling 4 eggs with the choice of chocolate. We gave them a set amount each and they had to use no more than that.

Here you can see them filled and ready for the paper tops

Putting them into the eggs is a delicate process so we use an individual egg cup to do it

These are our slips of paper with 'crack me' on them and the cup cake papers.
Some of the children wanted to have 'crack me' in different languages and so used google translate to find out how they were written.

We cut down the cup cake papers to make them fit better

Glue them on top

attach the 'crack me' paper to the bottom of the cup cake paper and then.......they are finished.

Next simply put them back in the box and  have them ready for Easter Sunday.

Blessings to you and your homes,