Easter/Spring Buckets--Dollar Tree Crafts

Getting some inspiration from Pinterest, I decided to go to The Dollar Tree to see if I could gather some supplies to make similar things. The first inspiration was from The Sweet Survival. It is a Hydrangea Covered Easter Egg. I had trouble finding a reasonably priced large Easter egg (Michaels had them for $10 or more) and The Dollar Tree had none. However I love hydrangeas so I still wanted to use them. (Hydrangeas were the flowers at my wedding.) I also saw these cute baskets at AllYou.com Kids flower crafts. I liked these ideas but wanted to do them differently.

I found these green buckets at The Dollar Tree as well as a faux hydrangea bunch and faux forsythia branches. I bought two of the forsythia branches and one hydrangea bunch and two buckets, so a total of $5 plus tax. Since I wanted Hazel to help me with it, I did not use the hot glue gun. I used tacky craft glue. However, this did not work well. We did start to take the center parts out to make them smooth to glue better. We also found we needed to work sections with it laying down on a side and let it dry completely before trying another section. I will touch them up with some hot glue later. I'm also thinking of adding a ribbon around them.Or maybe we will continue with our gluing and cover them completely. We may make a few more to give to the family or at least grandparents who we will see at Easter.

We also started on the pink pail that I bought for Hazel's kitchen in which to keep her cloth napkins and napkin rings. She got bored part way through this one though. She did say she wanted to put both types of flowers on it though. So stay tuned for what we do with this one.

Even though this has been a warm winter, I am starting to want the spring weather already. I love seeing flowers this time of year. I often buy flowers for the table to keep remembering spring is on the way. Here is a rose from a bunch I bought over a week ago. They still look beautiful. (I have not had much luck with the spring flowers lasting--tulips, daffodils.)

The Bunch after a week

I guess this post is appropriate today since we are suppose to get snow tonight. I hope you are having a great day!

Pin away

There have been many posts lately about pinning on Pinterest and needing permission. For more information you can check out this post at Corkboard Connections. I am happy to grant such permission. Please do not pin anything from a Sharing Saturday since those are not my pictures to share and I would ask that you not pin a picture with my daughter in it. Otherwise I'm happy to allow anything to be pinned.

I know I use Pinterest instead of bookmarks now. Being able to see a picture of the item makes it so much easier to find what I'm looking for. I really use it for inspiration and new ideas. After reading some of the legal stuff, I question some of my pins and from now on will look for a permission to pin from sites before I do so. Corkboard Connections provides the red button with Permission to Pin on it and is having a link party of blogs that are doing a post like this to grant permission.

So Happy Pinning!!

The Ant and The Grasshopper and Prayer Bracelet for Lent

On Sunday, one of the crafts at the Lenten Simple Soup Supper was to make The Pearls of Life bracelets to use in our prayers. Each bead means something. Starting with the gold one which is to represent God. The clear oblong ones are for silence. The white pearl is the I bed. The white bead is the baptism bead. The brown bead is the desert bead. The blue bead is the serenity or calm bead. The red beads are for love given and received. The three small white beads are the secret beads. The black bead is the night bead. The translucent circular bead is the Resurrection bead.  For more details about the meaning of each bead check out here. For a bit about the history of them read here. Personally I like to wear it especially during Lent to remind me to prayer and to bring me closer to God.

Sharing Saturday is still open through tomorrow. Please go check out the amazing projects people have shared. There are many for celebrating Dr. Suess' birthday on Friday as well as St. Patrick's Day and more! And I hope you will follow me at Facebook!! And voting at Circles of Moms is still open. I'm at number 34 and could use some more votes. You can vote every 24 hours.

One of our favorite books to take out of the library lately is Ant and Grasshopper by Luli Gray. So today, we began to work on some ants and grasshoppers. We also plan to make Ant's house out of tissue boxes. Hazel has already included Ant and Grasshopper in her daily activities of shopping, etc. when she plays. She also repeats some of the things Ant says in the book. I for the most part made both of these, however Hazel is working on some as well. We will share those when they are finished.

The story is a take off of the Aesop Fable. Ant is rich and has a big house. He likes to count the food he has collected each day. Grasshopper sings and plays the fiddle in Ant's yard and bothers Ant while he is trying to count. As fall comes Grasshopper tries to come into Ant's house and get fed and Ant laughs at him and turns him away. One night Ant wakes up and finds Grasshopper on his stoop nearly frozen to death and covered in snow. He brings him in and saves his life. There are so many lessons that can be taught from this story. The Grasshopper is homeless. Ant admits in the story he wishes he could sing. And the last line is my favorite: "'Everybody counts.'"

I used pom poms, pipe cleaners, googly eyes and felt for the grasshopper's wings. Hazel is painting some egg cartons for them and I have a great grasshopper out of TP roll pattern I found in several places when I searched grasshopper crafts. Here is one location. Another with a template is here.

We will share more of our ants and grasshoppers and our Ant's house soon. Hope you are having a lovely day!