Easter Celebration

We had a great Easter celebration that included finding Easter baskets, naps, finding Easter eggs and a great meal with our friends. We are blessed to have such a great church home/family and really are excited to watch where God leads this church. We had a great time hanging out with Sue and Steve and their family on Easter. The kids had a blast jumping on their trampoline and finding eggs while we all enjoyed some adult conversation, great food and great company. What a blessed Easter. I took over the bird's nest's that I had made and everyone seemed to really like them. I really liked them too, they tasted so yummy and were easy to make!

Happy Easter

Credits: Peppermint Creative, April Morning kit

He is Risen!

He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!!!

Happy Easter!

Happy Resurrection Day!

The greatest day in the history of the world.

No other religion worships a G(g)od who is alive!

Praise God for raising Jesus from the dead!

Alleluia!

We have hope.

We have joy.

We have love.

We have a Savior who died for us because He loves us.

What an amazing gift.

I finished the balloon eggs during Naomi's nap and then when she woke up she helped me put the Easter grass inside. I just have to find something to put inside.

Balloon Eggs

If you're looking for a messy but fun Easter craft look no further. I had seen this the other day and it brought back memories of grade school. I figured Naomi and I could do this pretty easily if she allowed herself to get dirty. I wanted to post this now even before we finished in case anyone else out there thinks they may want to try this. You'll need some time to let the craft dry so start it today!

We had a great time making this craft and it really held her attention. I've seen some tutorials on this craft that say to use 50/50 glue and water and well, we didn't do quite so much water because we wanted ours to dry before Easter gets here. So we eneded up using a lot more glue, but it's a small price to pay. Once we got to the tissue paper part we used paintbrushes to put the glue on the tissue paper once it was on the balloon because it was very "fragile". I liked the idea of using paper towel that I saw on someone elses blog because it was really strong and I could wring out some of the glue and still open it up to use on the balloon (just make sure to use a good quality paper towel). Now, the balloons are hanging up to dry and on Saturday I plan on popping the balloon and decorating them a little more! Happy crafting!
Naomi had a great time painting with the glue and painted for quite a while after we were actually done with our balloons. She said she was making a pretend balloon!
I plan on making these next.

Naomi's Easter Bag

I got Naomi's Easter bag done today. It didn't seem to take me as long as Micah's took and I'm not sure why that is. Probably because I did most of it in one day rather than stretching it over three days. I really am happy with how these turned out and could totally see making more of these for other occasions! I think they would make great birthday party favors...or presents, filled with goodies for the birthday person. Naomi was so cute today, playing with her new bag and she kept trying to give Micah his "purse" to play with, but he must have heard that boys don't play with purses because he wanted nothing to do with it.
I intended for the feet to be under the main body piece but must have moved the body piece when I was stitching it on. Oh well, nobody's perfect.I agreed to buy a table for my local PTA's Craft Fair fundraiser. I will set up a small display for my photography and also show my felt food and take some custom orders. Hopefully it'll be a little successful!

Easter Bags

My mother-in-law and I were at Target the other day and we saw these cute little felt Easter bags in the dollar spot. I was so tempted to buy one for each of my kids but decided that I could make my own and it wouldn't even cost me a dollar per bag. So, I bought a little more felt and used some that I already had and when I am finished I will have two Eater bags for approximately $1.40. So, it's not a whole lot cheeper than the ones at Target but these are handmade with love AND personalized.

Here's my first attempt at a tutorial for those of you out there who'd like to make your own Target knock-off Easter bag. Please know that I'm not a perfectionist nor do I really know that much about sewing, so take that into consideration while reading/following this tutorial. I took two pieces of 9x12 felt and cut off two inches from the shorter side, these will be your handles.Fold the handles in half and sew 1/4 inch from the edge (no need to turn under since felt does not fray). Then sew 1/4 in on the other side too, so you have two seams on the handle (the second seam just makes it look better, there's no real use for it).Next, take the two big pieces together and sew along the two shorter sides. (Sorry that I switched colors I decided to work on Micah's bag first...hence the blue.)

Cut a square off each bottom corner (I made 1 1/2 inch squares) and then stitch the bottom pieces together.Squish the square together and sew, this will be the bottom of the bag. (Sorry for the bad photo, my nice camera is in the shop so I had to use my little digital!)This is what it will look like once you've sewn the bottom pieces together.

Now turn the back right side out and you're all set (for the most part)

I like to make my bags a little studier so I find the corners and sew a seam all the way up from the corners. This makes the bag more rigid. Just make sure to backstitch at all ends since little kids will be playing with this. You want to make it as sturdy as possible.Just another view with the outside edges stitched.Next, add your handles. I just picked a place where I thought they looked good and stitched them on. I used a continuous stitch and made sure to backstitch at the beginning and the end. I also added a little "X" in the middle to make it look a little better. The trick that I've found for making handles go the right way is to hold the piece that is going to be the handle flat in front of you and then just drop your hands down towards each other and you should get your handles going the right way.Once the bag was finished I hand sewed on a little chick and an M on Micah's bag. I made a document with some bunnies (I'm using the white one for Naomi's bag) and a chick to copy and letters to trace for the bags. I just eyeballed the animals but cut out the letters and actually traced them onto the felt.Then it came time to get this on their Easter bags. First I sewed the eyes and beak onto the large yellow body, then I sewed the legs onto the bag followed by the wings and the little tuft at the top. Then I sewed the body on and before closing it all the way I added some poly-fill to make the bag pop! This project really didn't take me too long and it was great to work on while sitting outside watching the kids play and an easy project to do while watching TV (once the initial bag is sewn that is.) Let me know if something is not clear and I'll try to clarify. I'll post pictures later of Naomi's bag. I'm hoping to get it finished tonight!

Micah seems to like his Easter bag already!

I hope to do more of these in the future....tutorials that is.

Easter eggs

I found this great idea here and thought it would be a great craft for Naomi and I to do together since she loves to paint, and since Easter is so close (can you believe it?). I was right, she was totally digging this. Painting one egg was not enough, she wanted to paint another and then another...but we stopped at two! I let them dry overnight and then put them together today. I hung them on our sliding door...and made sure to hang it high enough so she would keep pulling the googly eyes off. When we were outside today she noticed the cheerios in the window since that was the box we used, how funny.