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Homemade Easter Egg Dyes with Onions |
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Saturday, April 7, 2012 |
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As a followup to our post: Homemade Easter Egg Dyes Kids Will Love, my German mother-in-law sent the following as an additional idea to being creative with homemade Easter Egg Dyes. We LOVE this idea and will be trying it in our Wisemommies' homes! Thank you Oma!!
From German Oma: "When we use onions for cooking we collect the brown layers we peel off. We place a lot of this in a pot with water, place the raw eggs (once pierced) into it , get it to boil and let it boil for 10 minutes. Then you take the eggs out and they will have wonderful brown colours from light to very dark (if you use yellow eggs). If you want to make them even nicer, you'll need an old pair of pantyhose(or a pair from the $1 store) and some nice grass leaves, preferably with structure – look for them in the garden. You cut squares out of the pantyhose, place one of the leaves on one egg, fold the hose around and fasten it tight with a thread. Boil the egg like this in the dye, where the leaf is, the colour will stay light."
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How to Make Easter Egg Ornaments |
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Friday, April 6, 2012 |
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 In Germany and Austria, it's customary to celebrate Easter by hanging decorated Easter eggs from the branches of trees or bushes. The picture, left, is from Saalfeld, Germany (Deutschland), and holds 10,000 decorated Easter Eggs.
While living in Germany, my German mother-in-law  used to give us handmade Easter Egg ornaments and an "Easter Tree" to decorate with during Easter (see picture right). I love this tradition of making Easter egg ornaments which you can keep for years to come.
This year, we started letting our son make Egg ornaments. Every year we will let him make more adding to his collection. We will hang some from a tree just outside our kitchen window, and the others to hang inside on an Egg Tree (designated small indoor bush/tree or tree limb cut for Easter).
 
Instructions:
- Wash the outside of eggs with soap and water
- Gently poke a hole at the top and bottom of each egg with a small kitchen utensil.
- Empty contents of the raw egg, without damaging the shell, by blowing through one end. Blow out the insides. You can do this by blowing yourself or using an egg blower (found at craft stores) or a with a rubber ear-and-nose syringe. It might also help to insert a long pin through one of the holes to pierce the yolk.
- Wash again with soap and water. Allow egg shells to dry well
- Put eggs through a thin stick of some sort. We used wooden sticks with Styrofoam to hold the egg in place. Use the egg carton or a big Styrofoam piece to place the wooden sticks with eggs, after decorating, allowing eggs to dry.
- Decorate eggs via stickers, paint, markers, glitter, glue on: ribbons, sequins, feathers
- Take a match, break in half, tie a ribbon or fish line to the match and tie at the top so you have a strong secure loop. Place the match inside the egg to hold the egg up and the tied loop allows you to hang the ornament.
- Depending on how fancy you have made the eggs, you can always protect the ornaments by adding an acrylic sealer or spray lacquer.
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Kissing the Blarney Stone & St. Patrick’s Day Crafts |
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Friday, March 16, 2012 |
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 Kiss the famous Blarney Stone in Southwestern Ireland at the famous 1446 castle situated on the edge of a cliff. In order to kiss it, you have to lean backwards, holding on to an iron rail, but after all the trouble you will be bestowed the gift of eloquence.
My French friend, left, kissing the blarney stone, and the two of us crawling around under the Blarney Castle.
Craft #1: Make your  own Irish Blarney Stone: My son, left, kissing his blarney stone. You'll need: smooth/clean rock, brush, green paint/green glitter, glue, markers, decorations such as plastic jewelry, googly eyes, bits of yarn, glitter
Take your clean and dry rock, and paint it green or paint some green glitter paint on it. Once the paint is dry, decorate your rock; eyes, a nose, hair, eyebrows and mouth.
Don’t forget to kiss your blarney for good luck and eloquence!!
My son and his French friend, below, making their blarney stones!
Craft #2
I truly did see some of the most magnificent rainbows on a monthly basis while living in Ireland. Make your own Rainbow for your St. Patrick’s Day Celebration. To make your Rainbow Fun you’ll need: a paper plate, scissors, stapler or tape, crepe paper or construction paper: red, orange, yellow, green blue and purple
Cut out the middle of the paper plate. Cut out long (2 feet+/-) pieces of red, orange, yellow, green, and blue paper streamers. Staple or tape the rainbow streamers onto the paper plate. Finished: you have a rainbow streamer for St. Patty fun!
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Tuesday, November 29, 2011 |
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An advent calendar is a fun way for kids to count down the days until Christmas. It starts on December 1 and ends on December 24. I made this advent calendar last Christmas and I can’t wait to use it again this year. The idea came from the very creative allsorts, love that blog. Each felt pocket has a button closure, is hand sewed and hung on a ribbon. Each day, the child may have a note of fun activities to read, a small toy to play or perhaps a candy to eat.
Here are the steps to make the pockets
1. Cut this pattern out from a white felt square and add button. Turn over and mark with a pencil where you need to fold the felt to make a pocket.
2. Fold up bottom and secure with pins.
3. Stitch around edge with thick red embroidery floss. Add some length of
embroidery floss to secure around the button as
seen in next picture.
4. You are almost done:) Just sew numbers 1-24
on pocket flaps and hang on ribbon.
Enjoy and Happy Holiday!
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With the help of supervision, depending on age, lay out containers full of different beads and or buttons. Use pipe cleaners and let the child mix and match the beads and buttons on the pipe cleaner to create a bracelet perfect for mother’s day. They might even want to create one for themselves! My son does! 
