I took a few days off this last week. Where has the time gone? Suddenly I find myself behind on my blog posts. By "behind", I mean behind where I wanted to be for today. You see, I make these little schedules out for myself. It occurred to me that perhaps I should let you all know what my "schedule" is so you know when to visit me and read your favorite topics! I am a little slow on the draw sometimes...........so here goes!
Mondays: I generally blog on Miscellaneous topics. Sometime it's Faith Stories that have inspired me since Sunday or perhaps I am catching up on my ideas from the previous week and post on a DIY Project. Any thing goes on Mondays!
Tuesdays: I post on Home Schooling and related topics like great books to read, ways to get your kid into college or how to make your children brilliant. You know, important stuff!
Wednesdays: I generally post on cooking. I love to cook, and by Wednesday we are usually out of groceries, so it's time to get creative and cook something fabulous!
Thursdays: I also love to make things. I post on creative topics such as DIY crafts, painting projects or sewing. I am not oblivious to the fact that my most read post is now a sewing tutorial I did on How to Hem Jeans. I plan to do lots more sewing tutorials in the future!
Fridays: This is my day to hit the road and be inspired by what's in the stores. I generally come home with a new product to share that I have found while I was out scouting! Occasionally, we head do some serious traveling, and I also post on great places to explore with your family!
It is my goal to take weekends off to be inspired. But, since I am one of those creative people, you just never know when inspiration will hit. Sometimes you have to break your own rules and share things or you can't sleep at night. Am I the only one who has this problem?? Don't answer that.
I will post the above information on my 'About' page for reference. Also coming is a list of the blogs that I regularly link up to! Follow me around on the web and explore!
But for today..........I had better get all my ducks in a row. Or chicks, rather.
I know what you are thinking. Here it is not quite Valentine's Day and I am already moved on to Easter. It's just how I roll, I can't help it. You see my beautiful Valentine's Day table decoration is now dead and I needed something to replace it. So it's on to Easter.
I pulled out my grandmother's silver Easter basket. It's small, but beautiful. I tried to think what would look best in it.
I decided that I wanted neutral colors. I like the way the natural look contrasts with the silver. So, I decided to come up with some natural egg dyes to work with this basket. Neon rainbow colors just aren't my thing this year.
We are expecting our first shipment of chicks later this spring, so I decided to color the eggs to look like uncolored eggs. Is that weird?
Rather than hard boil the eggs, we opted to blow them out. If you have never blown out your Easter eggs, you are in for a special treat. Our youngest boy was the champion. Don't worry, his face was only blue for a little while.
If you are trying this for the first time, here's what to do: Use a large upholstery needle to pierce through the entire egg. Make sure you pierce the yoke, or it's more difficult to blow them out. After piercing, blow into one end, and the inside of the eggs will come rushing out into your bowl that you have under the egg. It's quite a rush, really.
One of my jobs as a designer was to hand dye fabric samples for garment production. It's amazing what you can do to dye things different colors when you want to. Don't be limited by the dye colors on the shelf in the market, create your own. I used black coffee and frozen blueberries.
Make a dye bath with 1/4 cup boiling coffee and 2 tablespoons white vinegar for natural brown looking eggs. The longer you leave them in, the more brown they will become.
Use 1/4 cup boiling water, 2 tablespoons frozen blueberries and 2 tablespoons white vinegar for soft blue/purple eggs. Pour the boiling water on the berries, add the vinegar and stir. Add your egg and slosh it around until your achieve your desired color.
Then we decided we wanted a few eggs that represented the truely blue Araucana chicken eggs, and we made one more dye bath. This one was 1/4 cup boiling water, 2 tablespoons white vinegar and two drops of blue food coloring.
All in all, I really like how they turned out. I do not worry about the holes in the top and bottom of the eggs. A small amount of dye got into the eggs, but drained out easily as the eggs dried. They holes do not bother me, and no one can see them when the eggs are on display in their basket.
I added some Spanish moss from the Dollar Store to the basket instead of plastic Easter grass for a natural look.
How many days til Easter?
Wow those are the perfect shades of color!
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