Easter 2013

The table is set.

An impromptu Spring centerpiece:
celery and asparagus (from the fridge)
and lavender from my kitchen garden.

The Easter Bunny ties bags of goodies
to the chairs of each adult.

Each place has a dyed egg nestled in parsley and lavender.
This is Steve Sr's egg "place card."
The kids have eggs with their initials.

Since there's a girl in the fam now (hooray!)
the Easter Bunny leaves pink items.

Cecilia's egg "place card"
has the letter C dancing all over.

Another EBunny bag of goodies

Will's W egg "place card"

My place card could have M for Mom, G for GiGi, or
S for Sandy (or Steve, or Steve Jr.--see how confusing it could get?!)
So it's just plain pretty speckled purple.

S for Steve Jr.

The EBunny has a great time scattering eggs
for (almost) 14-month-old Daniel to discover.

D can check out the birds at their feeder outside the window
and find some surprises.

No need to be subtle about hiding places this year.

Well, the blue sort of hides by the pillow.

For a month or so Gigi and Daniel have been playing a game
called "Where's the Knife?"  Now, before anyone calls CPS,
the knife is a small butter spreader that can't even cut butter.
Little Man drops the knife behind the ottoman, and GiGi finds it.
Then GiGi 'hides' the knife somewhere
in plain view in the living room while D watches.
"Where's the knife?" GiGi asks.  Daniel searches,
spies it, and picks it up.  The game repeats from there.
It's GiGi's attempt to prep the kid for Easter.

The highlight of the day for Steve:
Daniel arrives and walks into the room
squealing "HeyYea!"  He toddles to HeyYea's legs
and asks to be picked up.  Arms lifted, D begs "Puh, puh!"
No, the baby is not dyslexic--we all know "puh" means "up."

More squeals ensue when Little Man finds his "bahnah"
and introduces it to his Uncle Steve.
Brooms, mops--anything with a handle--thrills him
and sends him into a rush of "bahnah, bahnah, bahnah . . ."

Hey, bahnah and I found an egg.
 

Let's pose for a picture
with my bahnah, of course.

Maybe he'll audition for a remake of the scene from Fantasia.
You know, The Sorcerer's Apprentice
with Mickey and all those brooms?

Little Man pauses for some reassurance from HeyYea,
who can fix a broken egg.
Bahnah can wait.

Mamae and Papai with Daniel and his bunny
and his bahnah

Steve films the festivities.

After our lunch of Lamb Curry

Cecilia shares her Easter toy jacks.

Not only are they shiny bright, they can spin too.

An after-lunch snack--Steve Jr. has just one more devilled egg.

Daniel's Easter Bag shares the table with
birthday gifts for Steve/SteveDad/GrandDad/HeyYea.

Just a few days early for his April 4th birthday,
Steve gets his favorite cake.

Famous Chocolate Wafer Cookie Cake
with one discreet candle and a happy little horn-blowing wooden clown
that's probably almost as old as Steve.

Daniel gives HeyYea a flatbed truck that hauls a race car.

A red race car!

Little Man explores his Easter bag.

Some organic bunny jellies,
a book about Jesus, . . .

and a little lamb (who looks a little like Shaun the Sheep).

 

Easter Blessings!

 

Preppin' for Spring on a Shoestring

I had lots of fun getting the house ready for Spring and Easter.  There's something about sweeping winter out of the house with some bright colors and the hope of new growth and life.

It doesn't need to cost much money either.  With a stash of trims, tired old candles, plastic eggs from WallyWorld, a handful of Hobby Lobby, a dash of Kohls, and a garden with a few good herbs, spring decorations can be done for a mockingbird's song.

Saved ribbon from my gift wrap stash
adorns an old sign salvaged from a Spring storage crate.

Thanks to Pinterest, WallyWorld (eggs), Hobby Lobby (birds)
and Kohls (ceramic lantern), the mantel looks fresh.

When I 'stacked the savings' at Kohls, they practically
paid me to take the orange ceramic lantern!
Old white pillar candles get scrap ribbon stripes
secured with leftover upholstery tacks.
They sit on copper candleholders/vases that
have been faves of mine for at least 5 years or more.

Collected birds from Hobby Lobby make me smile.

Kohl's placemat/napkin sets make a colorful table.
I've been trying to break this white Corelle dinnerware for almost 40 years!
The flatware is our wedding choice from 1973.
Glassware from HomeGoods.

A new dying technique this year:
rubber bands applied to eggs before the dip.
Thanks Pinterest.

Spring centerpiece for our Easter table
is an Easter morning afterthought.
Plexiglass container from the pantry
is filled with lavender from my kitchen garden
and lined with celery and asparagus from the fridge.

Styrofoam eggs are the only purchase for these individual place settings.
Wrapped styrofoam egg with jute dipped in glue
makes a great textured decoration.
Pair with a votive fresh parsley and lavender-filled votive,
and a dyed egg.

Votives pulled from a candelabra
are filled with tiny colored pebbles from a previous project
to support bunches of curly parsley and a sprig of lavender
plucked from outside my kitchen door.

Letter stickers from my stash
are applied to cooled hard-boiled eggs
before dying.  Another Pinterest idea
that turned out really well.

Another rubber band resist dyed egg--
really cool and easy Pinterest project.

Lettered eggs make fun 'place cards'
at our Easter lunch.

I tried ombre dyed eggs for the first time this year.
Pinterest has some good projects complete with instructions.

The vintage hankie bunnies come from Washington County
as well as the old white pillar candles.
A little sheet moss from Hobby Lobby is applied with that trusty glue gun.
The picture?  Some of my amateur photography from our Chappell Hill garden.
Snapfish offered 8x10 prints for $1!

Striped ribbon and upholtery tacks applied to an old wick candle.
Geometric design is on a refurbished flameless candle.
Last year our Towne Lake craft group
decoupaged them with decorative napkins.
Another amateur photo--matted and framed buttercup.

Birdcage from Hobby Lobby holds
a real cardinal's nest from Chappell Hill.
The framed print is cut from one of the
Charles Beckendorff Images of Texas books
we collected in the 1970's.



I do love Springtime.
Gets the creative juices flowing.
Or at least the copy-someone-else's-creativity juices . . .
;~/
on a shoestring budget.