easter carrot containers {diy}

Posted in crafts, Easter, how-to, printable by Anne

I am always inspired by people who make really cool containers with paper. I love how festive you can get with it–how you can make a vessel to fit with any theme. A couple of years ago I went to a Stampin’ Up party and we made sour cream containers to hold candies. So stinkin’ cute.

We, I mean the Easter Bunny, will be putting these sour-cream containers-turned-crafty carrots into the Easter baskets this year.

Your supplies needed include:

Patterned Paper cut to 4.5 x 5.5 inches
Treats to fill
Double Stick Tape
Green paper cut to 2.25 x about 3″

The orange patterned papers were created just for this craft and can be downloaded here and here. The bunny print was my husband’s idea. Cute, right?

The tutorial I used is at TidBits of My Life…there are some good visuals to help you along. I used peanut butter cups to fill, two in each. I didn’t eat any, I swear. Ok, I ate one. But just one.

Anne

Linking It Up:

A to Zebra Celebrations

Design, Dining and Diapers

Get Your Crap Together

25Mar2013

bunny bingo {printable}

Posted in Easter, printable by Anne

Here comes Peter Cottontail. Well, almost.

With the Easter Bunny of course comes the traditional Easter basket, but we really love the Easter Egg Hunt. Mr. Easter Bunny hides his eggs throughout the house and the kids have fun finding the eggs with little treats inside. Since Ronan is still a little guy, I felt obligated to give him at least a fighting chance to find eggs with his sister. So I made a little scavenger-hunt-bingo-style-matching game for finding the eggs.

The aim is to find all of the eggs that match the colors on the cards. Once they get older, the kids can race to find all of the colors on their cards first, maybe to win a special treat. For now, we will just find all of the colors. I will put out doubles of each color (for each child).

The Bunny Bingo PDF is available below.

Bunny Bingo Printable

Enjoy!

Anne

Linking it Up:

A to Zebra Celebrations

2 Pounds of Butter in 2 Days

Posted in Easter, food, recipes by Anne

I can go days, weeks, without baking. All of a sudden something will come up and I am baking like a crazy lady. This week: Easter; my mother’s birthday; my father’s birthday; and an ‘early’ Easter at my in-laws (really, a ‘look what the Easter Bunny brought for Moira’ dinner…too cute). What I did the past two days is absolutely crazy, considering I am 32 weeks pregnant. (I am feeling the aftermath of my craziness today…ouch!) Besides my aching back and feet, the end result was 4 wonderful treats, ready for the celebrations and lots of butter. Mmmmm, treats. Mmmmm, butter.

I saw these Raspberry Lemonade Bars from Handle the Heat over at Pinterest and could not resist the urge to try them out. It just sounded like summer, and God knows we could use some summer in Buffalo, NY right now. They are super-tangy and sweet, and chewy. Different…but I can’t stop sneaking a bite or crumb here and there, so we will say addicting in their own little way.

My father’s birthday was earlier this week. I made him peanut butter cookies, to be delivered during our visit.Nothing fancy, just classic, wonderful peanut butter crisscross cookies. I used the recipe from a Chow Life which is pretty much the recipe I remember from my youth…lots of peanut butter, lots of butter, lots of sugar! Who doesn’t love dozens of cookies, all to themselves?

My mother is celebrating a big one this year (I won’t disclose that information Mom, I promise). I really wanted to make something wonderfully special but to my mother’s taste. She asked for something with fruit in it. (PERFECT!!! I have been craving fresh berries lately!) I love reading Joy the Baker’s blog and found her recipe for a Big Berry Birthday Cake with Vanilla Whipped Buttercream Frosting with Rose Water. OH MY GOD!!! The crumb of the cake I have tasted so far is amazing. I am waiting to frost the cake until celebration day tomorrow, so I will have to share the fabulousness of the dessert after that. Stay tuned!

Moira and I made the sugar cookie cut-outs for Easter. She loves baking cookies and is super proud when she gets to tell people that she made the treats they are eating. This sugar cookie is THE sugar cookie recipe I have been using for all of my holidays, specifically Christmas, for years. I love it! However, I have been on the search for a frosting that satisfies me. I have settled for the past couple of years on a sugar frosting with just confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, and milk….until yesterday when I decided for a change to try a plain old buttercream recipe. The verdict? This is it for us!

Here is our favorite Sugar-Cookie Cut-Out recipe. I added some lemon zest and lemon extract for the spring occasion.

1/3 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour

Beat butter and shortening in a medium mixing bowl on medium speed until creamed. Add sugar, baking powder and a dash of salt. Beat until combined, scraping the sides of the bowl. Beat in egg and vanilla until combined (I added 1 teaspoon lemon extract and 1 tablespoon lemon zest here). Add the flour and mix until fully combined, using a wooden spoon if needed. Cover dough and chill at least one hour until easy to handle.

Preheat oven to 375. Roll one portion of the dough out at a time on a lightly floured surface to about 1/4 inch thickness. Cut out your shapes and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until edges are firm. Cool on the cookie sheet for 1 minute then remove to a wire rack to cool.

Buttercream Frosting

1/3 cup butter, softened
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
(I also used 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract)
4 Tablespoons milk

Beat butter in a medium bowl with hand mixer until creamed. Add sugar and mix. Add vanilla (and lemon). Gradually add milk until desired consistency is reached.

Frost your cookies and let them set for a couple of hours before stacking. And, although it is tempting, try not to eat the frosting out of the bowl!

🙂
Anne

11Apr2011

Bunny Pretzel Pops

Posted in Easter, how-to, kids crafts, recipes by Anne

Happy Monday. It finally feels like Spring these past couple of days and even though I am exhausted, it puts a little bit of pep into my step. It is a windy day today (I am reminded of “Pooh’s Blustery Day”…we have seen that movie quite often), but we still went outside, walked a couple of blocks, and played on the slide. It was just good to be out of the house.

Also made these today with Moira. Salty & sweet…mmmm

And they are covered in coconut…double mmmm

Here is what you need:

We used mini chocolate chips, white chips, pretzel rods, ‘regular-sized’ marshmallows, and flaked coconut. Most of it probably looks self-explanatory, but here is what to do:

Get your little work station set up…white chocolate chips melted; mini-chips ready; coconut in a shallow dish; marshmallow ears (by the way, the marshmallows were cut down the long way, then each ‘slice’ was cut in the middle to make 2 half-circles); pretzel rods; and wax paper for the finished product.

Dip the pretzel rod in the melted white chocolate chips.

Immediately roll it in the coconut.

Put the mini-chip eyes and nose on. Use some of the melted chocolate as glue if needed.

(Moira is in the, “NO, I do it” phase so things got a little messy.)

Use some of the melted chocolate to put on the bunny ears.

Sneak a pretzel rod, and when someone asks you what you are doing, tell them “I’m eating a pretzel!” in your best matter-of-fact voice.

Enjoy your treat (after you eat your dinner, of course!)

And if you have left-over marshmallows and melted chocolate, make these little fellas…roll your marshmallow in melted white chocolate chips, roll it in coconut, and add some bunny, eyes, and nose (using some of that melted stuff for your glue).

🙂
Anne

9Apr2011

Easter Hand-Print Painting

Posted in Easter, kids crafts by Anne

If I had to pick one of Moira’s MOST favorite things to do, it would be painting. I say, “We are going to paint a picture” and she practically starts spinning in circles with excitement.

Today we made a hand-print painting of an Easter egg hunt.

With a little bit of green paint, a blank sheet of paper, and…wait, it gets better…glitter egg stickers…we have a real masterpiece.

Moira’s hand-prints made the grass.

We have done finger paints before, but…

we are still a little unsure about the feeling of cold, slimy, green paint on the hands at first…

Oh boy.

Now we’re getting it…

Oooo, green paint on the hands…

Of course we did a couple of extra pages of fun!

Once dry, we added the stickers.

And the SLP mommy could not resist the urge to enter some concept instruction in there.

On top of the grass, on the bottom of the grass…

Big egg, little egg…

Blue, pink, yellow…you get the idea.

And the best part…showing Daddy her art when he got home. If only I had the camera ready to capture the pride on this little girl’s face at that very moment. Priceless.

🙂
Anne