Decorating (Hot) Easter Eggs with Crayons

Drawing on hot boiled eggs with crayons is SO much fun! This idea came from Family Fun magazine as a quick and easy way to decorate Easter eggs. However, we enjoyed using eggs as an art medium so much that we may draw on our boiled eggs every week!


As soon as the eggs finished boiling, I put them in a tray (that came with an egg dyeing kit). O(4) and I drew on them with the crayons, and the crayon wax melted as we drew.


I was undecided about whether or not to allow E(1) to join in on this activity. However, it was a moot point since E understands "hot" and was not at all interested in getting near the hot eggs. She sat quietly and watched her sister draw.

After drawing for a while, O decided to shave her crayons and sprinkle the shavings on the eggs. What fun!

Felt Bunny Finger Puppets

These sweet felt bunny finger puppets were a last minute addition to O and E's Easter baskets that I didn't finish making until after midnight on Easter morning. I used the pattern and followed the directions from the Purl Bee. These bunnies were quick and easy to make. I left the tail off of E's bunny since I knew she'd be spending a lot of time in E's mouth, and I didn't want to create a choking hazard for my baby.

Spring Felt Crown

This Spring felt crown is my favorite handmade Easter gift for this year! O loved it, and I was surprised by how easy it was to make.

To make the crown, I cut a crown pattern out of paper. I laid it on a piece of wool blend felt and traced around the paper with disappearing ink. I cut 2 identical pieces from the wool felt, and then sewed the pieces together using a blanket stitch. (This is only my 2nd time doing the blanket stitch, so it doesn't look great, and I had to start over a couple of times). I left openings for the elastic at the base of the crown. After stitching around the crown, I cut the elastic to the appropriate size, pinned it into the holes left on the crown, and did a straight stitch to hold it in place. I made the felt flower from a Martha Stewart felt flower barrette kit and glued it to the front of the crown.

I'm pretty proud of how this crown turned out, especially since I did all of the sewing in a dark room in the middle of the night:)

Yummy Birds' Nests

O and I made yummy bird nests with chocolate malt ball eggs for Easter! We had fun, and they turned out even cuter than I expected.

The idea and recipe for the birds' nests came from The Artful Parent. The nests are basically rice crispy treats made with cornflakes and shaped to look like nests. We made several changes in the recipe, but nothing major...we used Total cereal instead of corn flakes, we didn't toast our coconut, and we used a whole bag of mini marshmallows. I think making (and eating!) these fun, little nests may be a new Easter/Spring tradition for us!

To make the nests, we melted a bag of mini marshmallows along with a 1/2 cup of butter. We poured in a teaspoon of vanilla extract. We then slowly mixed in 4 cups of Total cereal and a fourth cup of coconut. We pressed the mixture into mini muffin tin cups to make the nests. After they were set, I took them out of the muffin tin. We refrigerated the nests overnight, and then we put the eggs in the nests to finish the recipe.

Happy Easter!

Could she get any cuter?!!! I don't think so!

We've had a wonderful Easter, but I have to admit that I'm glad that we are done with holidays for a while :) I feel like I've been constantly planning around and making things for holidays for months...wait, I have! My goal was to finish making handmade Easter gifts by the end of February, but I was up finishing up last minute gifts until after midnight last night. It was worth it though because O was SO excited about her handmade gifts...more on them later.

Happy Easter!

Easter Baskets for Fairies

O and my niece had a fun time making fairy Easter baskets on this week!

To make the baskets, I cut 2 cups out of a cardboard egg carton for each girl. They colored the cups with markers. We twisted a pipe cleaner to make a basket handle and hole punched a hole in each side of the basket. We put the pipe cleaner through each hole, and we were done! The girls filled their tiny baskets with flowers...most people would call the flowers weeds, but O thinks they are "beautiful!"

Egg Word Match-Up

Since O is really enjoying sounding out words lately, I'm trying to provide her with lots of opportunities to do so. This Easter cvc word match-up game from My Montessori Journey was perfect (via Walk Beside Me)!

We've had wonderful weather lately, so we've been having circle time, work time, and picnics on our screened porch. See E's sweet little hand? She was trying to help her big sister with her work :)

Easter Egg Word Family Activity

Cara at The Peterson Party posted about this fun Easter egg word family game a couple of weeks ago, and I knew we had to try it! It was simple to put together and fun to play. To make the activity, simply write the word family endings on one half of the egg and initial consonants on the other side. O had trouble turning the eggs (I did, too), but she really enjoyed sounding out the words. We've spent a lot of time in the car over the last week, and this was a fun new activity to do while riding. Thanks, Cara, for this fun activity!

Easter Egg Word Hunt

O has had a wonderful time finding Easter eggs with cvc words hidden inside! Thanks to Walk Beside Me for this fun idea!

As soon as O finds an egg, she opens it and sounds out the word. After she sounds out the word, she "says it fast." I sometimes have to remind her to "say it fast." O has had a reading explosion this week. It is amazing to watch, and she is having so much fun and is so proud of herself!

Gingerbread Bunny Cottage

O and I had a GREAT time decorating our gingerbread bunny cottage this weekend! Usually, she is only interested in making a huge mess with the icing, but this time she REALLY wanted to make the cottage look like the picture on the box. She helped me spread the icing on the roof, but then she decided that she wanted me to do most of the icing while she got to work placing the candy on the house. She also had fun making grass using craft foam and a bunny car using red cardstock.

I bought the bunny cottage kit after Easter last year (for about 2 dollars), so there was no question of eating the candy which made the experience even nicer! I'd decided that I wasn't going to buy any more of these kits since I really don't have room to store them for a year (and I'm not going to pay full price!), but I don't think I'll be able to resist after we had such a wonderful time decorating this house!

Decorating Blown Eggs

Decorating blown eggs is a tradition that my mom started with us when we were kids, and she still has a few left. I'm hoping to find them when we go to her house this weekend.

I decided to continue the tradition by having O decorate 2 or 3 blown eggs (and we'll date them), and I'll decorate 1 or 2 special eggs for her. We'll hang them on the egg tree (that we don't have yet, so that tradition will start next year), and when she is grown she can have her special eggs for her own home and children. I'm planning on coating the eggs with mod podge to strengthen them in the hopes that they'll last a long time. Here are our creations:

I decoupaged pictures from some of our favorite picture books onto the egg. It didn't turn out very well, and I was pretty disappointed. I should have used smaller pictures and next time I'll try to choose pictures that are printed on thinner paper.







I painted this egg with leftover chalkboard paint. I think it will be fun to decorate and write messages on it each year.







Here is one of O's creations. She painted 2 eggs and colored 1 with markers.








My mom and sister made an egg for each girl (O and my niece) using tissue paper and mod podge. They wrote their names on the eggs, and they are very pretty.

Thanks to Jo for the idea to use skewers to hold the eggs! It made painting and decorating the eggs so much easier!