Happy Easter!

I hadn't been giving Easter much thought until Thursday, when I decided to go digging around in boxes, to see what decorations I could find. I rediscovered the large inflatable bunny, that I bought for Blaze when he was a toddler.



The bunny and a vinyl table cloth were the only decorations I could find, but I think that's enough. The children have been having a great time bunny wrestling.

Yesterday, Blaze dyed a dozen Easter eggs.





I made my own silly food decorating and made spinach calzones that looked like Easter eggs (using a mixture of milk and food coloring to paint the dough, before baking).





Here is a link to the calzone recipe: http://overthecrescentmoon.blogspot.com/2010/09/spinach-calzones-vegetarian.html

A Steampunk Gift Box

A few months ago I decorated a hatbox using pictures from last year's calendar, because the pictures were too cool to just throw away at the end of the year. http://overthecrescentmoon.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-hatbox-for-blaze.html

This week, I did a very similar project with a wine gift box that was on the "free blanket" at the park one Thursday (every Thursday, the local homeschool group has a special playtime at the park, which includes a blanket where families can give away things they no longer need). 

This is what it looked like originally:

I started by spray painting the box a solid color.

Then I added a large calendar page to the box, using Mod Podge. When it was dry, I went over the entire box with a coating of Mod Podge to protect the picture and add shine. 

I did the same thing for the box lid, but I used the small pictures from the backside of the calendar for the lid, along with a circle cut from scrapbook paper. 

I replaced the original cord with a thin strip of leather.

Catching Up on the Scrapbook

I got out Blaze's scrapbook, last week, and discovered that I had fallen WAY behind. The last pages I had made were done just before Halloween 2011, so I've been trying to get caught up on a year and a half's worth of pictures.

I'm not completely done, but I need to go buy more paper before I can finish. Here's what I have so far:

Wine Glass Lamps

A very simple and inexpensive table decoration can be made using scrapbook paper, cheap wine glasses, and tea light candles or flameless candles.



I recommend the flameless candles if you are using acrylic wine glasses, but a traditional tea light will be fine for glass, just light the candle before placing the lampshade on the glass.

If you are using 12-inch by 12-inch scrapbook paper, two lampshades can be cut out of each piece of paper.



Print the template as a full page of letter-size paper. Trace it onto the back side of a piece of scrapbook paper, cut out and glue the ends together. I used a school glue stick, which worked fine.



With real glasses, I think these would be nice as party decorations, but with the acrylic stemware, I think they would be pretty on a picnic table.

My Fake Bun

I had never thought to myself, "I just don't have enough hair, " until I tried to do a more formal, Victorian hair style recently.



I wanted a sort of "Gibson Girl" hair style, with a bun and banana curls in back, but in order to have the loose pouffy hair in front, I had to make a ponytail that was too short for a bun. So, I created a fake bun.

I started with some wool stuffing (left over from doll making), which I dyed with hair dye.


yes, I know this does not look attractive. One of my friends said it looks like human skin.

After the wool was dry, I needle-felted it onto a bun form.


The color was pretty good, but my hair is far frizzier than that,


so I added some frizzy, red mohair (also left over from doll making).


When I cut my bangs, I also added that hair to the bun, which made it even more convincing. I don't know if anybody ever wonder about this or not, but, yes, human hair can be needle felted.


The finished bun, held in place with several bobby pins:

Natural Bridge Battlefield State Park

We went to a small Civil War battle re-enactment near Tallahassee today, at Natural Bridge Battlefield State Park. I babysit most Saturdays, so this gave us a chance to get Steambaby all dressed up in the clothes I made her.



I didn't catch the musician's name, but the dog's name is Dixie.








The little skirt got lots of compliments and several people told the toddler how pretty she was.










Blaze really liked the mono-goggles that we found in Steambaby's bag.










We didn't stay for the battle re-enactment.