Setting the Easter Table

Organic Spun Cotton Easter Bunny

Setting the Easter table I always look forward to.  I find myself to be anxious and excited for Easter brunch or dinner.  As a child we always looked for our Easter basket in the morning so by early afternoon the basket usually was depleted of all signs of candy.  Now, my nieces and nephews have a little more self control.  But there is still lots of energy in the house.  I love to put some sort of rabbit as the centerpiece.  He is the guest of honor after all.  I did some researching to come up with something new this year.  Should I go vintage or cheery cute? Here are a few finds on Etsy from sellers on our team and some not.

Above the top photo is a beautiful spun cotton rabbit carrying his colored easter eggs and ready to do his deliveries on Easter morning.  The details in his face are amazing, the colors of the organic yarn are mesmerizing.  You can purchase him from jejeMae on Etsy.

Art of Plants - Rabbit Plant

Above is a rabbit moss ball with a rabbit fern in it.  How appropriate and creative!   Art of Plants is owned by Jenny Stanley in Brooklyn.

From Romi Ceramics a selection of vases, adding a few spring buds to each one will add some variety and dimension to your table.

Romi Ceramics

Possibly my favorite are these reclaimed wood coasters.  Great to write your guests names on the back side because of the soapstone chalk.  These are from Simply Nu who specialize in sustainable products.

Reversible Coasters from Simply Nu

Simply Nu reclaimed wood coaster

And last but not least you do need an Easter basket.  Here are some vintage wire baskets from WishboneArt.

Vintage wire baskets 

Do you have any favorite ways of decorating your Easter table?

Have a wonderful, cheery holiday!

Tracey

https://www.etsy.com/shop/traceytoole

The Secret to Successfully Blowing Out an Egg

A couple of weeks ago Leslie from Astor Knot posted a wonderful tutorial on the art of Pysanky. After reading through the tutorial, I was curious to try blowing out eggs as I've never done it before, and after doing it I thought I would share some tips with all of you who might want to try it. 

1. First, I found out that it is easier to blow out an egg that is room temperature rather than one right out of the refrigerator. Leave your carton of eggs out for a couple of hours first. Another thing that I discovered is that fresher eggs from healthier chickens have a stronger shell that is less likely to break, so spend the extra dollar or two to get better eggs.

2. To poke the holes in the eggs, I used a couple of needles, one small sharp one and one slightly larger one. Using the smaller needle, I gently poked one hole in each end. Then I used the larger needle to make one of the holes slightly larger. Then, I used the larger needle to stir up the inside of the egg, piercing the egg yolk and scrambling the inside.

3. The next step is blowing out the inside of the egg. You can do this by just blowing using your mouth, but I used one of those runny nose sucking tools designed for babies that came in a baby medical kit. It's much more fun to use this on an egg than on an infant. In this case, the egg doesn't scream bloody murder and look at you with betrayal. I put the sucker thing on top of the smaller hole, then pressed the bulb to push out the insides of the egg through the larger hole on the bottom. Do this as gently as possible so you don't break the egg. Keep repeating the process until nothing else comes out.
*Note: In this project, I used a whole carton of eggs and ended up dividing the egg innards into separate bowls which I then used to cook and bake with. Thankfully my family enjoys eggs!

4. After the egg blowing portion of the activity, my daughters and I set off to paint and decorate our new eggs! We decided to paint versus dying so we could get brighter colors, but I think we'll also do some egg dying later this week. Don't want to deprive the girls of tradition.

5. I poked some glass head needles into the top of an egg carton for the eggs to rest on while they dried.

6. Finally, we ran some brown grocery bags through the paper shredder for a "nest" and settled the newly decorated eggs in the basket. The great thing about blown out eggs is that will last as long as your kids will handle them carefully. In our household, that is about three minutes, but you may have better luck in your home. Enjoy!

Until next time,

Karina

Windows of Agate

March Printable: Happy Easter Banner

Yesterday our talented and longtime contributor Kerry of KBatty Designs shared her fun Easter card tutorial with you. Today her Easter banner will kick off our new series of printable downloads created by our Etsy Street Team for you. Use the banner to decorate your home, or to lend some spirit to you Easter brunch festivities.

You can download the complete banner here:

To assemble it follow these instructions:

1. Print each page on card stock
2. Trim out each 4 x 4inch square on the gray lines - use scissors, x-acto knife & ruler or paper cutter...whatever you prefer
3. Use twill tape, ribbon, or twine to hang the banner. You can either tape twine to the back of each square, or more elegantly, punch a hole into each corner of the panels and thread twine or ribbon through each square. Use your imagination!

Quick Tip: Small removable hooks like these work really well for hanging your banner.

A big thank you to Kerry for sharing this with us and have fun with your banner!

Simone
groundsel.etsy.com

A Potato Stamp Tutorial :: Easter Cards

Easter is almost here! Do you celebrate? Want an easy craft to make part of the fun? When you get tired of dying all those eggs (did you see this post last week? Amazing!) pull out your spuds & have some fun with potato stamping. This is so easy it's criminal.