Happy Easter

We have been crafting a bit this year. We made this super easy and cute bunny mask from cardboard and cotton balls. Then we used small circle stickers to decorate some eggs. The little one could do that all by herself and was very proud of her work. Happy Easter to all of you!

DIY: Easter crafts and deco

This year my daughter is old enough to go on the Easter egg hunt. But instead of hunting eggs I have prepared little goodie bags instead. To give them an Easter look I fixed little egg cards at them. I also made a felt bag for the little hunter.
Together with my daughter I did some egg ornaments decorating too. I cut eggs from card board and we then stuck patches of origami paper on them. They are now part of my Easter decoration and my daughter is very proud she helped with them!

DIY: Early Easter decorations

I went to Sham Shui Po again last week (I get all my fabric and crafting stuff from there, it's a kind of wholesale neighbourhood). And there is always stuff that ends up in my bag which I never had in mind to buy when going there... So this time these lovely wooden bunnies made their way into my bag. At home I saw that they didn't have holes for threading so what to do with them? A look into my crafting supply storage gave the answer! Just glue them onto wooden clothespins and clip them wherever for decoration. 

Easter projects - 7. Easter paper bunny

This little fellow was made from a sheet of paper in the same way as the cootie catcher. Just glue the upper and bottom part together. Then cut two nice bunny ears from another piece of paper. Use pink paper for the inner ears, nose, cheeks and the tongue and glue them onto the bunny. For the last bit of decoration, namely the eyes and the moustache, use a black felt pen. It's quick and easy and your toddler might enjoy helping with this project as well.
Here is the link to the cootie catcher folding instructions again:
http://www.kikisweb.de/crafting/paper/origami/cootiecatcher.htm

Easter projects - 6. Cootie catcher

This is a cootie catcher. You can play little fun games with it or just use it as a nice Easter deco. The folding instructions can be found under this link:
http://www.kikisweb.de/crafting/paper/origami/cootiecatcher.htm

The eggs were dyed with beet root juice but it doesn't work very well. Those eggs were left in the hot juice (with half a cup of vinegar added) for nearly 2 hours and still the result is very uneven. But if you like the marble effect you can try it.

Easter projects - 5. Easter garland

This garland was made from origami paper. If you can't find it you can also use any other nice patterned paper. Just cut out some Easter shapes like eggs, rabbits and hens and then sew all the pieces together so they will make a nice garland.

Easter projects - 4. Quail egg deco

I finally found a bunny figurine. I had been looking for one for a long time. So now my quail eggs are in good company and the whole bunch turns into a lovely Easter decoration!

Easter projects - 3. Lamb cutlets

Lamb is a tradinational Easter meat. And lamb cutlets are just perfect as they don't need a lot of time for preparing and cooking. Just rub the lamb cutlets with some olive oil and then season them with salt, pepper, chopped garlic and fresh rosemary branches. Sear them in a preheated pan for about 2-4 min from each side (depends on whether you prefer it to be more rare or rather well done). Allow them to rest for another minute or two and then serve with mash and green peas or a nice green salad.

Easter Projects - 2. Breakfast Rolls

The second Easter project is for the Easter Brunch. These self baked breakfast rolls in shape of rabbits and hens will make for a lovely deco as well.

Basic dough:
500 g plain white flour
250 g whole wheat flour (or plain white if you don't like whole wheat)
3 Tbsp dried yeast
1 Tbsp sugar
1/4 Tsp salt
300 ml handwarm water

Mix the plain white flour with the yeast, sugar and salt. Then stirr in the water. This will give a very liquid dough. Knead  the dough until it's smooth. Then add the rest of the flour gradually and always knead in between each step. Add as much flour until the dough is still moist but doesn't stick to your hands anylonger.

Now you can divide the dough and add different flavours e.g. walnuts, dried fruits (raisins, blueberries, cranberries etc.) or olives if you like.
Shape the dough into little rabbits, hens, pretzels, bagels etc. and place on a tray covered with baking paper. Place a clean damp kitchen towel over the pieces and let it prove for at least one hour. You can also leave it to prove over night. Make sure that it doubles in size. Then bake the pieces at 180 degrees for around 20 minutes. Larger pieces will need more time (for a loaf around 40-50 min). The bread is cooked if it sounds hollow when tapping it's bottom.

Easter Deco - 1. Feltbunnies

This week is all about Easter projects. With two weeks left to go your Easter decoration will be smoothly ready in time if you start now. The first project are these cute Easter bunnies made from felt. Take the last image for the pattern (enlarge to at least A5 size) and cut it four times from felt. Then cut a little heart from a different coloured felt square. Sew two pieces together along the straight line. Unfold and stitch the heart onto it. Then sew the other two pieces together in the same way. To finish off put both new pieces together and stitch around the edges. Leave a little gap at the bottom so you can shove a little branch (or chop stick) into it. You could also sew a small piece of ribbon or thread onto the top so that it can be hung.