Friday Freebie: Easter Chick Craft

Earlier in the week, I shared a photo on Instagram of an Easter craft Dylan made:

I was asked if there would be a tutorial. Unfortunately, no, as it came from a kit I bought last year at a craft store. I have a habit of picking up little things like this on clearance after holidays and saving them for the following year.

The idea stuck in my head though and I came up with a quick freebie. It's an 8.5x11 PDF printable with my own sketch similar to the chick Dylan made. Print it out. Cut the pieces (or let your child if he/she is old enough). Color, paint, use as a template to trace onto construction paper, etc. Lots of creative options! Draw eyes or add googly ones like Dylan chose (another item I keep in our craft stash).

Click here to download the Easter Chick printable

Enjoy and have a wonderful Easter weekend!

Read More

Easter Bunny 2012

Our playgroup has managed to get together the last two years for annual Easter Bunny and Santa photos. This year it was looking good and then schedules, illnesses, etc got in the way. So, rather than our massive pile on of kids and moms, this year it was just Dylan and one friend.

We timed things perfectly so we were early to the mall with no wait. The photographer was very nice and gave the boys time to visit with the Bunny and get comfortable before sitting with him(?) for a photo. Although, the moms bribing them with a train ride afterward might have helped too. ;)

Supplies: Blueprint #6 by Gennifer Bursett; Design House Digital's Spring Menagerie collaboration kit; Miss Mint's April Morning & Kindergarten Crafts kits and Hoppy Easter elements; Hop by Sara Schmutz; Spring Time by Laina Lamb; Easter Fun by Agnes Biro; Daily Birdie font by Audrey Neal.

Read More

Easter weekend recap

We had a busy three day, holiday weekend. On Friday, Trent went to Chapel Hill to help his dad on a few projects around the house. Meanwhile Dylan & I joined friends for an Easter brunch and egg hunt. This was his first egg hunt with candy in the eggs. Oh, his face when he realized there were treats in the eggs! He paused after his first egg wanting to open it and get to the candy. I had to encourage him to move on and find more eggs first!

That evening he enjoyed the attention of Trent as well as from my dad, step-mom and step-brother who stopped by for a visit. He and Grandpa George played a game together.

Trent had brought home a basket of Easter goodies from his parents. We gave it to Dylan on Saturday to help spread out the fun. His favorite thing - a small plush green bunny. The bunny was even added to the collection of plush toys he sleeps with (Seahorse, Scout, Kermit, and SkippyJon Jones) which is high priority. ;)

Supplies: Stuffy Collection Template #2 by Tiffany Tillman; Masking Shapes Pack #1 by Lori Whitlock; Doily Set by Agnes Biro; Fresh kit by Audrey Neal (recolored 2 papers); Batik Regular and Brush Script Std fonts.

Yesterday, in spite of both Dylan & I suffering from allergies, we did go outside first thing to hunt for eggs. He spied them from the windows upstairs in our bedroom and couldn't wait to get out there. He even passed by his basket of treats on his highchair tray, never spotting them, as he headed for the door. It was so fun watching him run around grabbing the eggs and dropping them into his basket.

He finally discovered his basket when it was time for breakfast. He was so excited about the "big" chocolate bunny and hugged the book the Bunny left. Then he unwrapped the gift from Trent & me - the Muppets movie - and he was even more excited. He's been talking about that movie since we saw it during our Thanksgiving trip to Virginia. With allergies keeping us indoors with a box of tissues, we popped it in the DVR and had a family movie day.

Read More

Dying Eggs

Dylan and I have been getting our craft on this week including dying Easter eggs. This was Dylan's first time doing so. I debated with myself for a few weeks whether or not he was old enough. Now I'm very glad I went ahead and bought the kit! We only used half of the colors and 6 eggs, but he had a great time.

I set up outside on his picnic table. The weather was perfect in the shade on our patio and it helped limit mess. ;) I gave him 3 bowls with dye in the them and showed him how to dip the eggs. Then he pretty much took over.

He dipped them in one bowl, or two or all three. Some went to the drying rack and then back into the bowls again.

Here's our final result:

Truthfully, I did finally interfere with his creative process a bit and suggested some were done. This was simply to prevent them all from ending up brown! He really liked dipping the eggs in ALL three colors. And while 'gentle' isn't still fully comprehended, we only had one cracked egg (the back right) so it was a very successful project!

Read More

Easter Bunny Plaque

Last year, Dylan & I made this cute bunny plaque to hang up at Easter:

Instead of painting his entire hand, I painted just the palm and the pointer & ring fingers to create the head and ears. After the print dried, I painted his thumb in pink and helped him place it for the nose. The eyes and whiskers I painted using a small brush. Finally, I finished the plaque with Mod Podge and a picture hanger on the back.

Supplies: wooden plaque; acrylic paint; brushes; Mod Podge; picture hanger.

Read More

Toilet Tube Chicks

Yesterday morning, Dylan & I needed an activity so I searched Pinterest for an Easter project and came across Toilet Tube Easter Chicks at Happy Hooligans blog. Perfect. An easy project and I had everything we needed on hand.

Supplies

• Toilet paper tubes
• Acrylic paint and brushes
• Glue
• Googly eyes
• Orange felt (not shown)
• Tissue paper

We started by painting our tubes. Dylan was really into this at first. Then painting the tray of his highchair became more fun so I had to help him finish the tube!

Next, I had him point to where he wanted his eyes and beak. We went one at a time and with each I put a dot of glue, then he placed each piece.

Finally, he decided to skip gluing tissue paper to the sides, and instead stuck it out each end! I love that he made this project into his own. :)

And, I'm glad I had the camera ready to snap off a couple of quick photos because moments later he tore it apart. Then we had a new activity as he experimented with the pieces himself along with a glue stick I gave him. Part of the fun of crafting with a toddler - you never know entirely where you will end up!

Read More

Easter 2011

A glimpse of Dylan's fun on Easter morning this year:

Page design a scraplift of baersgarten's Kikaninchen layout on Two Peas.

Supplies: Miss Mint's April Morning, Hoppy Easter, Daditude and Ten Pin kits; Agnes Biro's Easter Fun kit; Karen Funk's Bloom kit; Carina Gardner's Paisley kit; Sara Schmutz's Colorwheel papers; Marker SD font.

Read More

tissue eggs

Since our tissue paper shamrocks in March were so successful with our playgroup, we decided to try a similar craft yesterday for Easter. This time we gave each boy a sheet of white cardstock with an egg outline printed on it. (I found the egg printout here.) We moms added a bit of glue using gluesticks inside the egg and then the boys had fun sticking bits of colored tissue paper to it.

Dylan's completed egg (admittedly with a few pieces by me - he bored of it before he finished covering the areas where the glue was):

And a look at our overall fun with all 6 boys ...

Supplies: Simply Tiffany Studio's 52 Thursday Templates No 9; Karen Funk's Bloom kit; Sara Schmutz's Delight papers; Oscraps.com Tweet, Tweet Collaboration kit; Miss Mint's Hoppy Easter kit; Sketch Rockwell & Myriad fonts.

Read More

Cheddar Bunny Carrots

Looking for a simple craft for the moms to do during our playgroup lunch I hosted two weeks ago, I decided upon a project for the kids' Easter baskets. I found an idea while browsing Pinterest about making "carrots" filled with goldfish from No Fuss Fabulous blog. This was perfect - a quick & simple craft we could complete while keeping an eye on our toddlers plus much better for them than more sugary treats.

If you are still in need of a little something for your little one's basket, here's how to create your own ...

Supplies

• disposable icing or candy decorating bags (note: I ended up with the latter since the icing bags were sold out, but be aware there is a large Wilton logo & smaller recycling logo printed on the candy decorating bags)
• Annie's Homegrown Cheddar Bunnies
• green ribbon

Fill each bag about two-thirds full with crackers. Since we had the bags with the logos, we filled to just below the logo. Twist the bag closed around the top of the crackers and secure with green ribbon.

Simple as that and you have cute treats for the bunny to deliver. :)

Read More

Easter Bunny photo

Last week our playgroup met at the mall for our annual bunny photo. The toddlers refused to stay near the Bunny by themselves so the five moms and one grandma present jumped in too. The two babies were pretty relaxed about the entire event. Honestly, I think one slept through it!

I had to laugh when I finally took a look at the photo. The toddlers look like they are getting mug shots - all so serious. LOL It was such a change from last year - not that getting the photo then was easy either as we had at least one runaway baby. After that adventure we had a nice, albeit chaotic at times, lunch at the Cheesecake Factory.  This year it was Chick-fil-a in the food court. ;)

Supplies: Karen Funk's Bloom kit; Miss Mint's Hoppy Easter kit; Jenkins v2.0, 2ps Island Style and Arial fonts.

Read More

Easter Bunny

Yes, an Easter layout in August!  I work on pages as I feel inspired and last week I got the urge to play with photos of Dylan and his friends with the Easter Bunny.  Our entire playgroup (all six mommies and babies) made it out for a visit with the Bunny and lunch at the Cheesecake Factory.   We had quite the adventure from trying to get all six babies to sit nicely for their photo (thank goodness for a very patient Bunny!) to arranging 5 high chairs, 1 infant seat and 6 mommies at a table for lunch.  There was a lot of laughter that day.  Anyhow, here is the layout I created using a few of the outtakes plus the "official" Easter Bunny photo of our group: 

I used a template to set up and arrange the elements.  I switched things up a bit to suit my design - ie, I deleted the scallop trim at the bottom and replaced the trim at the top with the grass; I used the paint blobs in place of the circles on the template and skewed them slightly so they were more of an egg shape than a circle.  Thanks for looking!

Supplies: The Queen of Quirk Soda Pop template; Jen Allyson's Design 365 kit; Miss Mint's Kindergarten Crafts and Painted Season kits; 2Peas Island Style font.

Read More

Easter

Dylan found a special little basket waiting for him yesterday morning ...


It looked a bit like a little chick ...


And inside was the book What Is Easter? which talks about the fun of chocolate bunnies and egg hunts while also explaining the most important part of Easter - Jesus' resurrection.

Read More

Easter Treats

This cute little treat box was one of the projects I made at the Stampin' Up party a couple weeks ago:


Have a beautiful Easter Sunday!

Read More

Happy Easter!

A very happy Easter! :) We're off to church for the services. But before I left, I wanted to share my 2 other card designs I created this year. The first was sent to our parents and the second to our younger brothers.


Supplies: Die Cuts with a View card; misc. yellow, white, blue, green & pink cardstocks; black stamp ink; Easter Lily clip art; Micron black pen; fonts: Two Peas Architect, Mistral, Two Peas Flower Pot; bunny paper piecing pattern from Creating Keepsakes Fun With Photos, Memories & More.

Read More

Annual Prayer Breakfast

The day started very early for me. Once a year the YMCA has a Prayer Breakfast at 7:00am. Today was the day and it was located about 25 minutes from home so I made sure to be out the door by 6:30. So well worth it. They are always enjoyable, but this year tops the list. The guest speaker & musician was Mark Schultz. He's a Christian artist and unknown to me until today. I was utterly blown away. He's a wonderful speaker and his music reaches out and touches you. You can't walk away from hearing his songs and say you didn't feel the Spirit. It was a beautiful way to start the Easter weekend. :)

He opened with Walking Her Home ...



Other songs he shared were Letters from War, He's My Son, and I Am.

Read More

Easter Egg Card

I made cards to mail to our family for Easter this year. Here's a look at the first of 3 designs I used. The others will have to wait so I don't spoil the surprise. ;)


Supplies: Die Cuts with a View card; Archiver's cardstock; black stamp pad; Micron black pen; Jolee's Boutique felt egg. Inspired by March 17 of dw2008.

Read More

Easter Eggs

Next week at church the kids have an Easter egg hunt during Sunday School so I took my class a little gift today instead. Here are the eggs I made for them:

Each is filled with jelly beans and has a little poem included. The poem is from Shirley's Preschool Activities website: Easter Poem - Jelly Beans.

Read More