Easter Sunday

Happy Resurrection Day to you and yours!



This is a song from Veggie Tales - a kids show but I think it sums up Easter beautifully.

Cardboard hand bags for Easter

The kids put these together on the pump the other night. I had previously cut out and assembled the cardboard base. The girls then chose their favourite scrapbook paper to cover it and made the beads on pipe cleaners for the handles. I hope they last until Easter morning because they have been loading them up with things that shouldn't go in a bag made of cardboard and we have had to repair them with sticky tape a few times. I think I should have used some thicker card for the gusset.

In case you want to make some of these, I first saw the idea over at ikat bag. This blog is a favourite of mine especially for all the cardboard creations... but then I love all of it. There is a printable template and instructions on how to make them. We will be making some of these again.

Good Friday

Easter is not about a long weekend, chocolate and bunnies, although that is all fun.

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!" But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."
Luke 23:39-43

Happy Easter.

Easter crafting

These are some of the things we have been making for Easter at our house.

Easter egg carton chicks found here. The kids enjoyed this but got frustrated when they cut out the paper pieces. The shapes they came up with didn't fit properly. It might be a good idea to work out the size for your kids first if you are going to try this one. My kids are like Tassie Devil's when it comes to crafting though so maybe you'll have better luck :-)

I found these glittery foam eggs on sticks at a junk shop in town. They were 10 for $2. When I saw them I thought they would be perfect as flower centres. My mum cut up these flower shapes ages ago (thanks Mum) and I have been getting out only a few at a time so they didn't get wasted (some of us don't have the fancy cutters still). This was a pump time craft. They look pretty. I am hoping they survive so I can pack them away for next year.

Here is the finished plaster eggs.

These chickies (or duckies for that matter) I found at Spotlight a couple of months ago. They were clearing last years Easter stuff. I got 4 of these for $1. They are supposed to be door hangers but I thought they would be great picture frames. Don't you just love how Ellamay has called hers "Alien Ellamay"?

This is a craft that Mum made up for the kids. (Thanks Mum again). Two sheets of black card with the window cut into it. Cellophane, double sided tape and the picture of Jesus is printed on vellum. The verse on top is just printed on normal paper. Ignore the finger prints on the window behind it ;-)

This last one, I made up for the kids to make for Palm Sunday. All I did was photocopy the story out of a bible story book onto card and cut out the pictures. They have little card props at the back to help them stand up. The palm branches I printed from here. This one is Ellamay's I like how she has added some orange paper robes on the ground. It's all mounted on photo mat board.

Still more crafting to go over the weekend. I will probably still be sharing after Easter! If you are looking for some last minute Easter craft ideas, check out One Pretty Thing.

Bunny ears

I like to stitch things. Especially felt. There is something very satisfying about it. Probably that for the most part the projects I make with felt should in theory be quick turn around projects so I should feel like I have achieved. This is the latest of these kinds of projects. The kids have, in the past, had the big bunny ears on head bands that seem to flood all the shops in time for Easter. I decided to make them some that were a little more understated.

I had in my mind what I wanted to make and hoped it would work out. I printed off a bunny outline from a kids colouring page and cut it out. I folded up the face of the bunny and used it as a pattern for all the felt. After I stitched it all together, I sewed the ears onto hair combs. It was fiddly but satisfying :-) I think maybe they might have worked better if I had sewn them on the other way around. I'll know that for next time I decide to make this kind of thing.

The kids have been wearing them around in the lead up to Easter. I have been tempted to make some for me. Maybe not. I will just stick with last year's hair accessories. I will have to try to get a photo of those up. Have a great day.

Plaster eggs

What to do with children on school holidays in the lead up to Easter? Making and painting and all things creative in our house. We recently went to a country market with my sister in law and found some plaster eggs to paint.

I am sure if you could be bothered, making up some plaster and using some chocolate moulds would be easy enough. Messy though. And since someone else had done the messy part (or some of the messy part anyway) for me, who am I too pass that up?

The 3 kids had fun painting them and I got some peace to get some laundry done. Everyone happy. It didn't occur to me to take pictures of the finished product. Amelia's ended up all brown because she mixed her paint together. Esther and Ellamay seemed to be quite concerned about this. I pointed out that she is 3 and does things like that. And that they are Easter eggs so it is quite alright that they are brown. They just look like chocolate now. :-)

School holidays...

Did you miss me? The kids are on school holidays and I am having trouble getting a turn on the computer. Sigh. It was so much easier when the little darlings weren't computer literate. Still another week to go before school starts back. I was hoping to share all our Easter makings but obviously that plan is not working out. This photo is of creepy smiley loaf that the kids think is wonderful. I got some for a special treat for lunch last week. Not sure of its nutritional value. Considering it smiles at you and all... We are going with easy as much as possible (notice the paper plate under the creepy faces?). Esther and Ellamay have now both had ear infections which has upset their time off a little. And yesterday I took the three girls to have their flu shots. I think Esther and Ellamay will be glad to get back to school!

I am looking forward to the Easter weekend. We hope to go into town and wander the Easter Fair as is the tradition. Hopefully the weather holds out. It is a little dreary today. I am having some kid free time today so I had better make the most of it. Hope to be back before Easter with some things we have been making.

Celebration Saturday Part 2

After our picnic in the park was over, we went for a short walk to the Chinese Gardens to explore. After living in and around Bendigo for most of our lives, we had never been to visit here before. Always the way though isn't it? We will have to try to visit some more attractions around the place. The kids love exploring.

There is the Chinese Museum there too but we didn't go in this time. The kids would like to go back again though. It houses the Dragons that are used in the Easter Fair parade.

 

I loved these paper cranes made from old catalogues.

And this guy looked really angry but I loved the texture of the carved stone.

We wandered back past the park and spotted these bats that are famous for being pests there. I couldn't believe how noisy they were. The girls thought they were cool but kind of creepy. I am glad we weren't any closer to them I must admit.

We walked up to the old Post Office building which now houses the tourist information centre for Bendigo. Inside there was this exhibition of dresses made from farming waste that is a feature of the Elmore Field Days (a farming show) every year. As you can imagine, Esther, Ellamay and Amelia all thought this was great. It reminded them of the dresses we saw at Floriade last year.

They were made of things like old bags, fencing wire, shell casings, weed matting, bird netting, electric fence tape and my favourite, the yellow dress made from plastic banana bags. I was annoyed when I got home because I realised that I didn't get a picture of the whole dress only the back lace detail. How cool are they though? To be made of rubbish but too look kind of pretty... not that you would really pick them to wear out to party but you know what I mean.

After all this exploring it seemed like a good time for ice cream so we packed up and went to McDonald's and had ice cream and a cuppa. The kids played on the play ground and we sat and relaxed. Then everyone had frozen cokes and more playing.

By the time we went home, everyone was worn out. What a day though! To me, it was perfect. Lots of fun, lots of time together and lots of treats. We don't know what the future will bring. Our plan is to always celebrate moments like this.

They will celebrate your abundant goodness

and joyfully sing of your righteousness.

Psalm 145:7

Celebration Saturday

I am finally posting about last Saturday's celebration day. If you missed the post from last week, we had Celebration Saturday because Amelia had results back from her specialist saying she is the healthiest she has ever been in her life! Perfect excuse to celebrate, don't you think?

We went to Bendigo and had a picnic in the park. It is such a beautiful park. We had our wedding photos there (almost 11 years ago) because the park has such beautiful trees and the autumn leaves are divine. There wasn't lots of leaves on the ground but they are starting to fall.

The kids had so much fun running around doing cart-wheels and flips and pretending to be super heroes.

We took bubble mixture and there was lots of bubble blowing. It was a perfect day for that. Quite breezy so the bubbles travelled all the way across the park and everyone looked to see where they were coming from.

Even Tim joined in :-)

I managed to take a couple of hundred photos of the day but the kids didn't stay still long enough to set up for a family photo that I could be in. I love this one of the 3 girls. They were playing trains and stopped long enough to pose for me. Little posers :-)

This is the cake I made for the day. I had grand plans of icing it with chocolate icing and decorating it with a little paper sun and making a little "HOORAY" banner for it. I ran out of time though. And you know what? It didn't matter. We stuck the sparklers in and the girls cheered and were just so excited that we were celebrating, stuff like the way the cake is decorated is so irrelevant. It took Tim using half a box of matches and some careful cake box placement to get those sparklers to light. When they were lit the girls started singing a song they made up as they went along about how great our family is and how happy we are. After all this time of stress and being unsure about how things were with Amelia, it felt so good just to forget all that and be excited about that day. That day. That time. Everything was well and happy and perfect.

Things will change in the future. We know that. But at the moment we are going to keep being excited about this time of great health.

I have another photo heavy post about our Celebration Saturday with the second half of our adventure so stay tuned :-)

Up above

Big sun, big moon

I am a bit late posting these pictures. Things have been busy one way and another. These photos are from March 19. The big moon night. We didn't see it in all its glory because it was cloudy and smokey from all the burning off that has been happening around here. Look how pretty the sun looks in this picture though.

And this spider just hanging around with some tumble weed in its web. We have tumble weed every where. That time of year I guess.

And here is the moon. It would be nice if I knew which settings to put my camera on. One day. Meanwhile, this looks kind of cool anyway, don't you think. Especially the lens flare off the moon. I do like lens flare.

That is all. Have a great day. I will be back soon with some kind of crafty thing. Or maybe just some kind of mid-crafty thing. :-)