Happy Easter Sock Bunnies

Wishing you all a Happy Easter...He is Risen!

Bunnies don't have much to do with why we celebrate, but it's fun to have them around and add to the joy of Easter. My kids love their squishy sock bunnies that I made from Poundland over-the-knee socks and LiL Blue Boo's tutorial.

Something special to add to such a special day! Happy Easter!

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I'm linking up to some of these fabulous parties.

DIY Chocolate Eggs

If you've been following along for a while, you probably know that my son is allergic to dairy. This makes it pretty difficult to find Easter candy in the UK that he can enjoy. I have not been able to find any eggs, bunnies, chicks or any other Easter-themed candy that is anything other than milk chocolate. Oh, wait. I did see some white chocolate eggs, but those are also full of dairy. 

So, I have solved the problem by making my own dairy free chocolate candies for us to enjoy this Easter. They are made from dark chocolate, which is totally dairy free...and delicious!

Materials:

Green & Blacks Organic Dark Chocolate Bars 70% (or equivalent)

Silicon Molds

Microwave Safe Dish for melting chocolate

Chocolate Bar Foil Wrapper (or foil)

Method:

1. Very carefully open the foil wrapper so that you can reuse it to wrap the chocolate candies.

2. Break chocolate bar into pieces and place in your microwave safe dish.

3. Melt chocolate in microwave, stirring at 20-second intervals to prevent burning.

4. Carefully spoon melted chocolate into silicone mold.

5. Place in freezer for 15 to 20 minutes.

6. Turn silicone mold upside-down and pop out chocolate candies. If the candies don't pop out easily, return to freezer for a few more minutes.

While your chocolates are freezing, cut foil wrapper into pieces that are large enough to completely cover all sides of the chocolate candies. If the wrapper isn't large enough to make pieces for all the chocolates, you can use kitchen foil. We always wash and save our foil because it is such an easy thing to reuse. So, I took some smaller pieces our and flattened them when I realized I didn't have enough G&B foil. 

After the chocolate has hardened and you've popped it out, place it upside-down on a small piece of foil. Then bring all the corners and sides up and over and press them down.

If you press gently on the top of your chocolate egg, the design will show through the foil. You've now got a foil-wrapped chocolate candy!

We're stuffing ours into plastic eggs for an egg hunt we'll host on Friday.

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I'm linking up to some of these fabulous parties.

End of Google Reader

So, you may or may not have heard it, but Google Reader is not going to be with us much longer. While I'm sad to see it go because I'm in such a habit of using it, I'm happy that there are other great options for keeping up with my favorite blogs.

I've transfered my bloglist to Bloglovin' and I'm lovin' it so far! Some other options are Feedly and Networked Blogs. If you want to know more about them, take a look at Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy's review. Stacey's reviewed each of the mentioned options and has screenshots as well.

If you currently use Google Reader to follow me, I'd love for you to switch over and continue following my blog with one of these other options. Here are my links to Bloglovin' and Networked Blogs. Or you can click on any other sidebar links to follow me on facebook, twitter, pinterest, hello cotton, etc. Thanks!!

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Cress Egg Heads

Make your own cress egg heads! We picked up a packet of cress seeds when we were shopping for our Easter Garden. It was the perfect activity to do today with my little girl who's been ill and resting on the couch and my little guy who's been seeking extra attention due to his sister getting more attention while being sick. Anyway, it was an easy activity to do on the couch. We brought all the supplies over to her so she could enjoy making cress egg heads, too.

If you want to make cress egg heads, here is what you will need:

Cress Seeds

Cotton Wool (Cotton Balls/Kitchen Paper)

Eggs Shells with the top cracked off

Egg Carton to hold egg shells

Sharpie to draw egg face

Water

Once you've gathered all your materials, follow the steps below...

1) Place cotton wool into egg shells until there are a couple centimeters left at the top of the egg shells.

2) Draw faces on your egg shells...very carefully so they don't crack.

3) Pour water over the cotton until it is damp.

4) Sprinkle seeds on top of the cotton...as many as you want. The more seeds there are, the more hair your cress egg head will have.

Place the egg shells back in the egg carton and near sunlight. Watch them grow over the next week. Keep an eye on the growth and water if necessary.

We can't wait to see what our egg heads will look like with their fluffy green hair...hopefully as fluffy as these mustached egg heads! ;-)

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I'm linking up to some of these fabulous parties.

Cotton Candy Circus

Here is my latest Etsy treasury, once again made for the Knit1Treble2 team challenge. I hope you enjoy it! I sure did, especially with all these beautiful, bright, cheery colors and seriously cute creations!

'Cotton Candy Circus' by SunshineMakings

Hand Crocheted Jester H... CwtchBugs $14	Pixie Hat for Newborn G... TrickyKnits $41	Cotton Candy Crochet Pa... DizzyStitchCro... $4	Clown Bonnet, Photo Pro... justbehappy $24
Handmade crochet light... Buzaitingle $36	Easter Gifts / Easter B... LittleBittyKni... $10	Crochet Toy Pattern Ic... bySol $4	Mr Elephant crochet ami... AlaSascha $3.99
Super Bulky Handspun Ca... Funkyarns $25	Colorful Crochet flower... IDcrochetAcces... $27	Cotton Candy Bow knitbypearl $8	Falkland Wool tops, rov... WharfedaleWool... $12.5
Blended Merino Wool Top... Spottybunny $3.99	THE LAS 2 Circus Clown ... dollymixxx $5	Felted Wool Slippers Gr... WoolWalkerShop $75	Merino 64's 23mic N... Blueface454 $3.25

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

Easter Tree

After putting together our Thankful Tree, and then our Christmas Tree, why not make an Easter Tree, too? So my kids and I decided to brighten up our days and to celebrate spring and Easter by, yes, making an Easter Tree. 

If you would like to know how to make an Easter tree, you can take a look at my tutorial here. It's one I wrote for our Thankful tree and we used the same tutorial for our Easter tree. I had kept the can to store various objects. Since it was already painted, we decided to use it again. We spruced it up a bit by hot gluing loads of foam flowers and butterflies to cover the can. I bought them at Poundland over a year ago and have been desperate to use them...to get rid of them...for a long time! I don't know why I bought them in the first place because I'm not a huge fan of foamy crafts. After decorating the can, gathering sticks, arranging sticks, and stabilising them with gravel from our drive, the kids hung our colorful eggs from the branches. I'm hoping to decorate it a bit more in the days to come....perhaps with these butterflies.

And now we have another burst of color in our house!

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I'm linking up to some of these fabulous parties.

Easter Garden

Easter is one of the most significant holidays and it has been a joy lately to teach my children that it is about more than bunnies, eggs, and chocolate. To help them experience the true reason we celebrate Easter, we made an Easter Garden. I was inspired by this Easter Garden tutorial on A Holy Experience.

Our Initial Supplies: 

Large Plant Pot, Plants, Compost, Small Plant Pot, Stones, Candles, Small Candle Holder

Supplies for Later in the Week:

Wax

Small Piece of Cloth

Butterfly

I took my little girl and boy to the garden centre and let them choose plants for our garden. We also bought a large plant pot and compost. We found all the other supplies in and around our house.

It was such fun to arrange and plant the plants together. I let the kids decide where they wanted everything. We put the small pot on its side and partially filled it with compost. Ann (A Holy Experience) suggested writing the words Grace, Resurrection, or Joy on a stone near the 'tomb' and my kids chose Joy. I'm pretty sure it's because being 3 and 4 years old, they understand what Joy is but are still trying to grasp the concepts of Grace and Resurrection.

We made a path of stones leading to the tomb and our freedom from death. I love this imagery. We filled a small candle holder with water and sunk it into the dirt to be our small pond. We then placed candles around the garden which we will light one each night leading up to Easter. Making this Easter Garden with my children was such a joy and a really special way to inspire conversation about Christ's great sacrifice and resurrection.

In the days to come, we'll do the other things suggested in the tutorial: 1) Planting seeds on Palm Sunday to represent the hope that is coming soon. 2) On Good Friday, make a wax caterpillar and cover it with cloth and place it on the tomb. 3) On Sunday, there will be a butterfly in place of the caterpillar to represent new life.

After making this, I've also realized that I love having live plants in the house. It relaxes me to glance over and see lovely green growth, such a contrast from the grey misery outside the windows. 

If you have a moment, please take a look at the tutorial on A Holy Experience. Ann uses her words in such a magical way and the symbolism of the Easter Garden may become clearer from reading her original tutorial.

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I'm linking up to some of these fabulous parties.

Infinity Scarf Crochet Pattern

I know it's the first day of spring, and probably not the best timing for a cozy, warm infinity scarf pattern, but it's still really cold where I am...and it's always winter somewhere, right? I'm really excited to be listing the pattern for this infinity scarf in my Etsy shop. I named it Tulip Fields Infinity Scarf because of the tulip stitch which is used throughout the pattern. 

On your way over to my shop, you might also want to check out the blogs of these fabulous ladies who helped test the pattern...

Sascha from A la Sascha, who has some gorgeous crochet doll patterns in her own Etsy shop

&

Shannon from Sewing Barefoot who blogs about all kinds of craft & diy loveliness

& 

Kay (my mom & partner in sales) from Jerry and Kay, who writes about her ventures in crafting, sewing, and crochet.

...and thanks to Beth, too, who doesn't have a blog but was a wonderful pattern tester. :-)

Thanks for stopping by and I'll be posting more regularly now that my big deadline for work has almost passed. I've missed my hooks, yarn, and blogging fun over the last weeks!

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I'm linking up to some of these fabulous parties...the ones that allow shops ;-)