Mini Easter Treat Baskets

We've been raiding the recycle bin again, and just in time for Easter fun. The boys and I put together these simple little Easter treat baskets for giving away sweets. We love turning boxes into all sorts of wonderfulness - especially for giving away.

These Mini Easter Treat Baskets are made out of tea boxes.

These Mini Easter Treat Baskets are just perfect for giving out your favorite Easter cookies, candies, and goodies.

Interpreting Easter for Little Ears

As Easter Sunday approaches the boys and I have set aside our regular Bible class. Instead, I haven been reading out the Bible stories leading up to and about the first Easter. I'm also having them draw a journal page each day about what we are reading and discussing together.

Here are some of their interpretations of the stories so far.



One of the things I'm trying to focus on is the celebration of new life that Jesus' resurrection represents. The life that we thought was lost when Jesus died on the cross is found again when He comes back to life. New life for Jesus means new life for us too. Putting that into terms my boys can wrap their brains around is challenging. 

My boys know that every time we ask for forgiveness our bad jobs are erased and we can start new again with a clean slate. That's their current understanding of new life. Unfortunately, that doesn't always apply to our relationships with people, but it always applies to our relationship with God. This is information my boys know and utilize all the time with God and with Matthew and I. My hope is that their hearts will grow to understand the power and beauty of this reality, how deep it goes, how wide it spreads, how true and everlasting it really is. Everlasting life!

Easter Egg Treat Packets

Easter is coming up fast. We're getting geared up to finish our last week of school before spring break and before heading down to spend Easter with my parents. Before we do I wanted to get one last Easter craft in with the boys.



This craft was inspired by some adorable bunny surprise packets I saw on Craft with Mom. For this craft we used an egg pattern instead of bunnies and laced them together with yarn.



I prepped the eggs for the boys and they got started on decorating them with watercolors.



You can decorate the eggs with markers, crayons, or color pencils as well.

After the eggs dried we laced up one side. Then we stuffed them with chocolate eggs and jelly beans and laced up the other side. You can use ribbon if you prefer, but a flat ribbon tends to twist - especially as little fingers are doing the work. I recommend yarn or string.



Here's the egg pattern I used.

Happy Easter!

Easter Egg & Paper Flower Garland

I totally let myself hog this project. I needed some creative space and some mama time so I didn't invite the kids to help on this one. I warded them off by telling them I was making them an Easter surprise - which I kinda was. Kids can definitely help out with this project if you want. Little kids can stuff eggs and cut leaves. Bigger kids can make flowers and tie on the eggs.

This Easter garland boasts beautiful handmade paper flowers and plastic Easter eggs stuffed with treats. The eggs are tied onto the garland with pretty ribbons in coordinating colors.



You can hang it up or use it as a centerpiece along the center of your Easter table.



Kiddos can untie ribbons and open eggs after Easter dinner.

My inspiration for this craft was a gorgeous floral garland from Oh Happy Day. It was wrapped around a giant paper maché egg. How fun is that? I love that site. I've since become obsessed with paper flowers. Stay tuned for a Mother's Day craft that's just as fun and pretty.

A dollar store is a great place to pick up supplies for this craft. Michael's will do too. For this project you'll need:
- construction paper in pastel colors
- a glue stick
- green twist ties (the kind you get at the grocery store produce section)
- large and small pastel plastic Easter eggs
- treats to fill your eggs
- ribbon in multi colors
- a cheap garland



I started the project by making paper flowers. They are the most time consuming aspect of this craft. I saw a Martha Stewart flower making kit online and just kind of copied it. I made my own templates and got to work. Go to the bottom of this post for templates.

I made 3 large flowers and about 6 small ones. I used templates P1, P2, P3, B1, and L1 to make big flowers. Templates P3, P4, B2, and L2 make small flowers. Cut out all of your petals and leaves. You'll need 1 leaf, 1 round base, and about 6 of each petal size per flower. You'll also need to cut 1 or 2 half inch strips the length of your construction paper to make the center.



You can see one here at the bottom of the picture. Cut little slits along the whole length of your strip(s) to make fringe. Also, prep your petals by cutting a slit in them about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom. Glue one piece over the other causing the petal to pucker as you see above.




Cut a small green twist tie in half and glue half of it to the base leaving half of it hanging out. That way you can use it to affix your flower to the garland. Next, glue your leaf down onto the base.




Now you can start gluing down your largest petals overlapping them a little as you go. Then glue down the next size. Big flowers have 3 layers, small flowers have 2. Once your petals are all glued fold your leaf up a bit so it isn't so flat looking. I even added a little glue to the big ones to attach them to the side of the big flowers.

Last, roll up your long fringed strip like a fruit roll up and glue it closed. Bend down some of the fringe starting at the outer edge leaving the fringe in the middle standing straight up or bending it in towards the center a little. Glue this to the center of your flower.




Once your flowers are ready to go stuff your eggs with treats. I used chocolate peanut butter eggs, chocolate bunnies and carrots, and cute little Easter erasers.




Cut lengths of ribbon for your eggs. I like the ribbons to dangle festively from the garland. To tie on large plastic eggs you'll need 16 to 18 inch pieces of ribbon. To tie on small or medium eggs cut 10 to 12 inch pieces. Tie an egg on to your garland to make sure you like the length of ribbon hanging.




Instead of starting my garland from scratch I used a dollar store garland leftover from Nora's birthday party. This cheap garland was simple and sparse - the perfect base for adding a whole bunch of cuteness. You can also use a long sturdy ribbon.




First affix your flowers to your garland interspersing them evenly along the length. Then you can start tying on eggs. The stuffed eggs will make your garland a little heavy so take that into account if you hang it.



Happy Easter crafting! Here are my templates.