Easter Eggs

Happy Easter weekend.  My Easter tradition is to color eggs on Easter Saturday.  I think I'm going to try this method this year.  That will actually be the second batch of eggs I color this month.  Last weekend I dyed eggs the all-natural way so I could enter this contest hosted by My Baking Addition.

From left to right:

• Grape Juice - this one didn't quite work for me.  Instead of turning a pretty purple color mine were black.
• Tumeric - yellow is my favorite color and I love how these came out.  Vividly bright yellow.  Wow!
• Red Cabbage - after these eggs were cooked, they were still white so I was skepitical that it worked.  But the next morning after keeping them in the red cabbage water overnight, they turned this pretty blue.

While the black eggs were a bummer, it wasn't a complete fail.  Along with the yellow {gold} eggs, these were perfect for this University of Iowa alumni {go Hawks}!

 Here are some other past Easter projects:

These silk tie eggs are probably my all-time favorite Easter eggs.

I made these Easter eggs last year.  The colors were so pretty.

And who can forget the peep topiary.

Have a happy and blessed Easter.

Easter Egg Place Cards

Easter is right around the corner and I wanted to make some creative place cards for our Easter dinner.  Instead of the traditional {and boring} paper cards, I decided on eggs {of the wooden variety}.

I found these wooden eggs at Michaels.  The flat bottoms made them perfect for this project.  I simply painted them as colorful Easter eggs.

And then I wrote our names on them.  Viola - place cards!  Or maybe I should say place eggs!

These just make me smile.  I love them.  Our Easter table will be very colorful this year.

Have a happy and blessed Easter.

I am sharing at my favorite parties.

Pretty Crafty Apron

About two weeks ago, my sister sent me an email asking how busy it was in the craft room.  She wanted me to make her an apron that she could use while selling at craft shows.  Something with two pockets.  I told her I could do it and I even had a cute pattern in one of my books.  So she sent me fabric to make two aprons {she couldn't decide which she liked best.  I know the feeling.}  And last Saturday afternoon, I made these two cute aprons for her.

Can you guess what she sells at craft shows?  Homemade dog treats.  The cute fabric she choose is perfect for her business. 

I took the liberty of adding some fun polka dot fabric as an accent piece to one of the aprons. I had it in my fabric stash and it coordinated perfectly with her fabric.  I couldn't pass it up.

The pattern was from the book The New Handmade: Simple Sewing for Contemporary Style by Cassie Barden.  The aprons were a quick sew.  I made both in just a couple of hours.

Have a great afternoon and happy St. Patrick's Day.

Butterfly Collage

I think it's time to think spring.  Those ten inches of snow we got on Tuesday will be the last of this season.  Yeah, that's probably not true but it's nice thought anyways.  Last weekend I made a project that totally got me thinking summer.  {Forget spring, I went right to summer.}

When you think of butterflies, do you think of flowers?  I do.

One of my favorite spots to enjoy the beauty of flowers is my mom's gardens.  Every spring and summer I spend hours there taking photographs.

Her flower gardens have been the inspiration for a few of my projects - Flower Photo Block Quilt and Earth Laughs in Flowers Tray.  And now they are the inspiration for my butterfly collage.

I know I'm a Johnny - come - lately to the butterfly collage scene but this idea has been in my head for about a year.  But I think my butterflies are unique.  In fact, they are one of a kind.  Why?  Because they are made from my original photographs of flowers in my mom's garden.

After selecting the photos that I wanted to use {not an easy task as I had hundreds to chose from} I simply printed them from my home computer on presentation paper.  Since an actual butterfly has colors on both sides of their wings, I flipped the images and printed on the back side of the paper.  {Of couse, no one will see this detail - it's just for me.}

Then using a butterfly paper punch, I punched out 42 butterflies.  {Actually, more than 42.  I just couldn't decide which I liked and narrowed it down later.}  I scored each butterfly along the body and slightly folded the wings up to give each one some dimension.

Then I glued them to a piece of heavyweight drawing paper and put the collage into a shadowbox frame.  {I got the frame at Jo-Ann's - 40% off sale + 20% off coupon}

 I absolutely love how this came out.  The hardest part was deciding on the 42 butterflies.  Like I said, I had many choices - enough that I could make another.

Here are close-ups of the butterflies:

Do you have a favorite of the flower butterflies?  I think the pink lupine is my favorite, which is why I put it in the middle.  But I love them all.  

Now if spring would hurry up and get here...

I am sharing at my favorite parties.

{Confidential} - March Project Board

It seems like I add more projects to the board than taking them off the board.  Does anyone else have that problem?

Compare to the February Project Board.

Read my February Review.

{Not So Confidential} - February in Review

February has been a quiet month - a little cold, a little snowy and a little crafty.

{What I made} Craft Projects

In case you missed it:

{Framed} Heart Art
Cinched Patchwork Satchel
#RBDmysteryblocks - January Mystery Block

{What I made} Yummy Eats

• Pink Grapefruit Breakfast Smoothie by crafty little gnome - Very refreshing and a new favorite.
• Fruit & Yogurt Breakfast Parfait from Iowa Girl Eats - I'm currently in love with this.  The frozen fruit is the key to making this special and makes it a great option in the winter when fresh locally grown fruit isn't available.
• Lemon Poppy Seed Pancakes from Joy the Baker - Made these for dinner on the first Friday of lent.  The rest are in the freezer to be popped in the toaster for a quick yummy breakfast on another morning.
• Pretzel Dogs from Tracey's Culinary Adventures - A home run!
• Cheesy Lasagna Rolls with Spinach and Ricotta Cheese from Whole Foods - Simple yet delicious.

{What I read} previous count - 2

1. A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton
2. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain