Friday 15 April 2011

Easter Ideas


Next weekend is Easter. I thought I would share a few ideas of what I like to do around this time, including a couple of arts and crafts ideas, a recipe, Easter egg hunt suggestions and decorative touches you can make to your home. If you like any of them, you have time to work on them this weekend!

Arts and crafts. My son and I had great fun making Easter cards the other week. I cut out some egg shapes and then let my son loose with glue, glitter, shredded coloured tissue paper and felt pens. Once he had decorated them, we left them to dry and then stuck them onto coloured folded cards. We used his alphabet stickers to add a 'Happy Easter' greeting on the front of the card, above the egg. I handed him the stickers and guided him to stick the letters next to one another but he did the sticking himself. The grandparents loved them!

I found a post on making a cardboard tube bunny rabbit family that we're going to try out next week too. They look relatively easy to put together and are very cute.

Recipe. Last year I was looking for an Easter biscuit/cookie recipe to use with a new Easter egg cookie cutter I had been given. I found one in my Mary Berry's Ultimate Cake Book that I really like. This year I'll have my son help me make them:

  • 40z/100g softened butter
  • 3oz/75g caster sugar + extra for sprinking
  • 1 egg separated
  • 7oz/200g plain flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinammon
  • 2oz/50g currants
  • 1oz/25g mixed candied peel, chopped
  • 1-2 tablespoons milk

Pre-heat oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas 6 & lightly grease 3 baking trays. This recipe makes about 24 biscuits.
Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in egg yolk.
Sift in the flour and spices and mix well. Add currants, mixed peel and enough milk to form a fairly soft dough.
Knead the mixture gently on a lightly floured surface and roll out to a thickness of 1/4in./5mm. Cut with your chosen cookie cutter and place on the prepared baking trays.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 8-10 mins. Remove from the oven, brush the biscuits/cookies with the lightly beaten egg white, sprinkle on a little caster sugar and return to the oven for another 4-5 mins or until pale golden brown.

Easter egg hunt suggestions. An Easter egg hunt is a lot of fun and can be adapted to suit different ages. Weather permitting, it's nice to do outside either in your garden if you have one or you could do it in a local park. You could organise a larger-scale Easter egg hunt with friends, neighbours or extended family if you all live nearby.

For young ones, you don't want to hide the eggs or whatever they're collecting too much - keep them visible and give strong hints to lead them in the right direction. I remember one year when I was young, my parents made little bunny footprints (just cut out from paper) and scattered around for me to follow. For older children you could be inventive with riddles to help them on their hunt. I'm sure you can think of lots of other ideas!

If you don't want your children collecting and eating a bunch of chocolate, you could get fillable Easter eggs and fill them with healthier treats or small toys. They will be just as fun to find.

Decorative touches. Simple and seasonal, cheap and cheerful - I'm talking about a bunch of daffodils. Easter is a good excuse to pick some up and have in your home.  Your local florist probably stocks wooden eggs on a stick that you can add to your vase for a more Easter-themed look.

You could create an Easter basket by decorating a wicker basket using ribbon and flowers to display some painted eggs inside. If you have some nice egg cups, you could put those out with real or painted eggs inside as a table centrepiece.
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I hope you enjoy some of these Easter ideas.  I would love to hear about any of your Easter plans, activities or traditions.
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Photo credit

4 comments:

  1. I love the footprint idea, and as Babyzoid is an expert finder of things (her parents try to hide!) I think she'd enjoy it. I might fill any eggs with raisins to make it healthier, or olives even. She eats them like sweets!

    We used to do the old hardboiling of eggs before panting and decorating them, sticking on glitter, buttons and all sorts. Will be doing that next year when Babyzoid will be able.

    I'd been looking at days out and local events and the Easter egg hunts are always so expensive. What better way to be frugal yet still have fun than make your own? xX

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  2. Lovely ideas here! I'll be doing some Easter arts and crafts with my two as well as an egg hunt - I love easter - tons of fun!xxx

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  3. Hi
    Just wanted to say congratulations and let you know that your blog has been nominated in the MAD Blog Awards for UK parent blogs.
    If you’d like to find out more about the awards and the prizes on offer, then head over to www.the-mads.com.
    We will be publishing details of all the nominees in all the categories on Monday morning, and nominations are open until 5pm that day – so if you’d like to take part, make sure you encourage all your friends, family and readers to keep nominating!
    Best of luck and well done on your nomination.
    Sally
    The MAD Blog Awards

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  4. Thanks Mummy Beadzoid & Lucy for sharing your Easter plans. Hope you had a lovely Easter weekend with your families.

    Sally - wow, thank you for nominating me in the MAD Blog Awards for UK parent blogs, I'm so grateful and flattered! Unfortunately I didn't see your comment in time to do anything about it so I missed the opportunity to encourage people to vote for me. All the same, I'm very happy to have even been nominated :-). Thanks again!

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Thank you for reading. I'd love to have your comments and thoughts!