Easter Craft: Stained Glass Cross (Greeting Cards)

It's craft time at our house. For Easter week, I'm keeping the school time list to a minimum. A big part of our time is being spent focusing on Easter and doing special projects to celebrate this special day.

On Monday, we made "stained glass" Easter cards to send out to family and friends. To make these cards, we covered a frying pan with tin foil, heated it  up enough that it would easily melt crayons, and then set to work making little puddles with our old, broken up Crayolas. When the piece of foil was full of colorful wax, we dipped our paper into it. Computer paper worked find, and pressed it into the pan using a spatula.

We did this until we had a fun assortment of brightly-colored "stained glass" papers.

Next, we traced cross shapes onto the backs of the papers, cut them out, and glued them onto card stock. Inside we wrote, "Happy Easter. Have a Wonderful Resurrection week. The Lord is Risen!" Then we addressed, stamped, and drove them to the post office.

I'm linking to

4.14.2001

The big event of the day was shopping the JBF Sale near our home! 500 consignors with tons of kids toys, clothing, and books set up for one weekend of mommy thrift shopping. The line at the door when they opened at 10:00 must have been about two blocks long. I was glad I only got there five minutes before they opened because it was cold and windy. And, this sale is so well organized, they got the line moving very quickly once they did open. I came away with a few cute clothing items, but I was mostly excited about the books I got: four books from the Usborne Young Puzzle Series, a great big hardback book of children's classic such as The Swiss Family Robinson, Tom Sawyer, and Anne of Green Gables, a book of children's electronics experiments, and 100 Marvels of the Modern World. And, if I may brag a bit, my kiddos did outstandingly well as I browsed the kiddie goodies.
The kids and I ran several other errands, mostly shopping for Seth's birthday coming up in only two days! I am so excited about the birthday cake he's getting. When I asked him the other day what kind of cake he wanted, he said a dolphin cake. As I usually do for the kid's birthdays, I started searching the web for the DIY birthday cakes. I was surprised at how many I found with dolphins. I decided to go ahead and try to make one myself even though my cake-decorating skills aren't that great. But while we were at the grocery store yesterday, I decided to walk past the bakery just to see what they had on hand in pre-made cakes. I was shocked when I walked up and saw a beautiful cake decorated with dolphins. I've always been too frugal to get the kids store bought cakes for their birthdays, but this was just too perfect. There were only two cakes on display that weren't just the generic flowers and balloons, and one of them happened to be a dolphin cake! I couldn't resist.

The picture's not great, but it does show that this fun and cute cake is way better than anything I would be able to come up with on my own. Seth and I were both pretty excited about it.

And, since I spent more than I was expecting on the birthday cake, I decided to save $15 on buying a pinata at Target and doing the DIY pinata instead. So far, in my opinion, making a pinata is a lot more fun than making a cake. The kids and I had a lot of fun slapping pieces of newspaper dipped in flour paste onto a balloon.Now we have to wait for it to dry and add some crepe paper. It's a messy project, but lots of fun! Here's how Mr. Pinata looks so far:

My whole kitchen may be covered with flour paste by the time we're done, but I guess that will give me a good excuse to scrub everything down really well!

Only two days until this sweet little man turns 4!!!





4.11.2011

I woke up so sore from the two jogging outings I took over the weekend. It had been waaaay too long since I'd been out for a run, and my muscles were feeling it big time!

I got to watch my sister's kids for most of the day. They are some of the most well-behaved, delightful children I know. It is always so nice to have them over for a visit.

Baby cousins looking longingly through the window at the big kids playing in the back yard

Seth is eagerly counting down the days to his birthday . . . only 5 more days until he turns 4!!! Now Mom needs to figure out what we're going to do to celebrate !

Growing up so quickly!

The sun is shining, I'm expecting my tulips to start blooming any day now, and I've got that itch to plant a garden again. I'm really hoping it'll work out for me to rent a plot at a community garden this year since our back yard is just too shady for a garden.

I'm still slooowly sorting through the kids' clothes, trying to set aside what they won't need this Spring and Summer and putting it away until Fall. Keeping the kids' clothes organized is a challenge. I love Minnesota, but changing out the wardrobes every 3 months is daunting for me . . . I think of my own childhood days spent on an island near the equator where the same clothes could be worn year round . . .

A friend and I decided to start a weekly Scripture memory meeting with each other. Our first goal is to memorize the book of Ephesians. This will be really good for me . . . memorizing Scripture is something I've been wanting to do more of, and having someone to report to each week will give me the nudge I need to get started.

31 Days to Clean

I love Spring time . . . flowers, sunshine, kids running around outside for hours at a time. But in my mind, the word Spring is often accompanied by another not-so-pleasant word: Cleaning. It's not that I don't enjoy cleaning or that I don't want to clean, but the not-so-pleasant feeling that comes with the word stems from the frustrations of not having enough time to keep things as clean as I'd like. I get easily discouraged because in a house with three small children, things don't stay clean. Also, I tend to get stuck on one or two tasks, such as dishes and laundry, and put all my focus on those chores while forgetting to set aside time to get other household jobs done. So, I love to have lists from people who have been through these same struggles and have figured out a method that works. That's why I was excited to find out about 31 Days to Clean-Having a Martha House the Mary Way. It looks like a fun, encouraging, not-too-strenuous way to get that Spring cleaning done. I'm excited to get started! Check out this downloadable book by clicking on the button on my sidebar.

I'm also doing the HomeMaker's Challenge. Find out more here.