Monday, April 25, 2011

sunday evening (well it was when I started)

I've mentioned before how Frieda's not as into craft as I am. But still I persist.

Being a non-religious traditionalist I like the idea of ritual around annual holidays, if Easter isn't going to be about the resurrection of Christ I'd still like it to be about more than just chocolate. I'd like to imbue it with traditions that give it a relevance to our family, rituals the girls can look forward to and participate in, special Easter activities and festivities.
At the very least have a few tricks up my sleeve to occupy us during the 4 day weekend, the weekend in which winter traditionally puts in its first earnest appearance.

So I blew some eggs (my eyeballs are okay, thanks for asking), bought some stockings, unearthed the wallpaper glue, dug in my precious paper stash to cut some scraps and got two eggy-related projects ready for Frieda and I to tackle during Stella's naps.

Sad to report Easter craft semi-fail on both accounts.

We kicked off with egg-dying.
Frieda only wanted to use dhania leaves, 
[Discard collection of feathers, leaves and assorted lace we'd collected during the last week.]
and only wanted to use one per egg.
[Abandon mental image of lavishly dyed and decorated eggs.]
Then she wanted to stir vigourously.
[Watch despairingly as lone leaf undulates in waves of tea.]

The best of the bunch ...


Moving on.

During the next nap we decoupaged the hollowed eggs. Or rather I did. It went something like this:
'What stinks Mum?'
'Nothing.'
'Something smells really bad, this glue smells really bad.'
'No it doesn't.'
'Then this egg smells really bad.'
'No it ....' I lean in for a sniff, 'DOES! It smells really really bad! I'm sorry baby, you must've gotten the one egg which didn't wash out properly. Chose another one.'
'No thanks Mum, I think I'll go and find Dad.'

I halfheartedly decorate two eggs alone. Hey, at least I got a moment alone!


Maybe next year ...

4 comments:

spudballoo said...

Guffaw....yeah, I had all kinds of crazy ideas for fancy egg decoration. We hardboil them and roll them down hills (crazy Brits). My children wanted to use black marker pens, nothing else. Diggy (4) drew 'a superhero..jumping.. with 'a hurt' (he means a bruise).

Sigh. They weren't very pretty. Damn those children. xx

Unknown said...

i stick with the classics ...just dye and boiling!

hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend otherwise.

Possum said...

Very funny!!
And so impressed with the egg blowing etc. All I did was boil a couple of eggs for a salad...does that count? :)

Stephanie Meade Gresham said...

Well Frieda just doesn't know how lucky she is! I bought a dying/decorating kit on a whim and my daughter is STILL begging me to use it. I just can't picture trying to DYE anything with Monster Sam stomping around like Godzilla. Maybe I'll let her glue and paper them like yours instead...

And on that note: your eggs are pretty. I'm impressed. :)