do you know why easter falls on the day that it does? it is the first sunday after the full moon following the northern hemisphere's vernal equinox. true story.
this is our fave of the silk dyed eggs this year. we have done this the last few years with my mom, bakka. no bakka visit this easter but matt came over this morning and shared this tradition with us.we have used only silk ties in the past. this one was a silk shirt (from my mom, she collects silk thrift finds for this project). the shirt had black floral designs on a red background. it bled into the dye water and onto the other eggs a bit but it was so very vibrant and stunning in it's transfer.
we had a quite day with our egg dying, a couple of hunts, and a dinner cooked on the grill.
i had a number of felted eggs in various stages of progress and got them all to completion over the last few days. i can't believe we have a dozen and a half felted eggs now (with one knit egg one in there from the lovely jessi!)! i love having this alternative to the plastic eggs. we still easily fill these with a single piece of candy or a little treasure. not only do we avoid the plastic but they bring a playful and sensory rich element into our egg play.
it's so fun to see their little faces peeking out at you from their hiding places!
only half a dozen of them are monsters and it is fun to come across one of their little personalities. it has been comical to watch the children's interaction with each of them. i have never seen this kind of magic with plastic eggs.
jasper really likes digging in for the treasure! he plunges his little fingers right into the wooly cave and feels about.
i enjoy going to the health food store and getting a handful of candy to supplement their eggs with. it is nice to say *yes* to sweets for a day, knowing that i know what is in those treats...even if they are still loaded with sugar. jasper eats his as he goes. sienna collects all hers and puts them away. she rations out one for each of them each day as long as it lasts. ;) so nice that she shares with him despite the fact that he scarfed his own as fast as his fingers could dig them out of those wooly caves!
the four new members of our egg monster family. i made many monsters last year but only two stayed with us. these four sprang to life this year. two of them the children had seen already but two of them they discovered during the hunt.
this guy has a little bit more of a sculpted face than i have done before.
the plastic egg inside this one popped open during the felting process creating an odd shape. (i had it taped shut but the tape came undone. i use my eggs a lot and should probably retape some of them.) i set to it with my felting needle and turned it into this little box!
the first time it was filled with two chocolate coins. even though there was only one box to discover, it held a coin for each child. they shared without hesitation and i smiled.***disclaimer: many other irritating, disappointing sibling interactions occurred throughout our normal day. this is the one i choose to remember and record today. ;)
one of the only things in their easter baskets that i personally made was this little johnny jump-up fairy for sienna. she saw me making a similar one for a swap recently and asked for one of her own.
the fairy was woodburned and painted with watercolor pencils. she has a sparkly acorn hat. i think she may get a petal cape, too. her cradle was one of my eggs that i knew sienna would love given all those lovely shades of blue.
the walnut candles from our earth day hunt were set afloat giving this tea cup yet another life.
our easter centerpiece.
