Spring is here (although at 80 degrees today it feels more like summer), and I have moved once again. This time, to Connecticut. It is beautiful here, very picturesque New England. We are still getting settled, and there are still a few boxes yet to be unpacked, but we thought it would be nice to host my husband's family for a casual Easter lunch.
For the occasion I wanted to make some kind of festive spring Easterish decoration that my 2-year-old daughter could help me with. We have tons of forsythia in bloom around our yard, and the branches are so beautiful and springy with their bright little yellow flowers that I thought it would be nice to cut a few and hang something on them, like eggs.
Since I wanted to make it in advance of Easter, I couldn't have hard-boiled eggs sitting out for days, but after a few failed attempts trying to blow out the yoke and ending up with broken eggs, I decided against that. I thought about what else I could use instead of actual eggs, and after a few unsuccessful scouting trips to local craft stores for brown paper kraft eggs, I decided on decorative paper. (Apparently if you want the good Easter decorations you need to shop for them months in advance -- two weeks before is considered late. Who are these people? I thought I was way ahead of schedule because it wasn't the night before.) I chose yellow, to go with the forsythia flowers, and a light but vibrant turquoise blue, because I had a little platter I wanted to use in that color for something else that was going on the table -- speckled egg cake pops. More on those another time.
I also cut out some eggs on plain white paper which my daughter decorated with yellow and turquoise colored pencils. Using my
Scotch ATG 700 tape gun (my most useful craft tool -- I highly recommend getting one if you frequently do projects that use double sided tape) I taped a few of the sheets together so the eggs would be double sided, then created a simple egg template and traced it onto a few of the sheets, and cut them out with a scissors. I used a small hole punch to make holes in the tops of the eggs, and tied a piece of yarn to the eggs and then to the branches.
I covered the table in a white table cloth and made some burlap runners. My original thought was to go with twine to hang the eggs because I thought it would give the whole thing a more rustic feel. But I found a tinsely yarn in the blue color and my daughter liked that one better so we went with it. There are no wrong answers when it comes to projects like this, and it's great when the little ones can pitch in with their opinions (of which she has many).
I arranged the branches in a big glass vase, and voila! It was so simple and it came out really well, and we had a great time making it together. I think my favorite part was collecting the forsythia with her. Unsurprisingly, she was very specific about which branches we needed to cut.
Happy Spring! If you have any spring projects you would like to share please let me know -- I would love to see them!
ps: I just realized that my daughter's outfit matches the project. What? Don't you all match your children's outfits to your holiday projects too? ;)
