easter vacation

Last week we spent a week with my parents and my sister and her family in Paris. It has become a tradition to take a family vacation over spring break, and is quite a treat to all spend a week together...we rent an apartment so that we have a comfortable home base, and so that we do not have to eat out three meals a day...something that is not so fun with lots of kids in tow. One of the things that makes these trips so special is that between trips to museums and sights Adam and I, and Lauren and Ben, can take turns going off to explore while the others take care of the kids. Knowing this, I planned ahead and brought the supplies to dye easter eggs using the tools used to create pysanka so we could dye eggs when it was my turn to entertain the kids at home. We always dye eggs, and always enjoy it, but the Ukrainian method is very elaborate and time consuming so makes great activity when you want to spend some time on it. While Lauren and Ben went exploring the Marais the kids and my parents and I worked on these eggs. Although they are not the precise and geometric patterns of typical pysanky eggs I love the more abstract results and we all really enjoyed the process. I think we will do this again next year, so hopefully I can take more photos and share the details in another post in time for next easter!

p.s. we came accross this cute little easter bunny at the paris bird market. I'll post more about that soon. 

paper flowers

My mom recently celebrated her birthday and the kids and I decided to make her a big bouquet of paper flowers for our celebration. I ordered a bunch of crepe paper and some floral wire and floral tape before we set to work. Bea was most excited about this idea so initially it was just the two of us working together. It was a really fun activity to do as a pair since we could focus and work together.

There are lots of ways to make crepe paper flowers but the only one I had ever tried was the technique shown above. You layer some squares of tissue or crepe paper, fold them with accordian pleats, and twist a stem around the center before carefully peeling up the layers one at a time, creating petals. I love this method, and find that even little kids can manage it fairly well. You can vary the shape of the flowers by doing wide or narrow pleats, and by trimming the edges so they are soft and round or spiky.

 

In addition, I wanted to try to make more realistic and delicate flowers. My friend Jodi has made many paper flowers over the years and has done stories on the subject for Martha Stewart Living so I searched and found her how to's: we tried the continuous petal method, the single petal method, and made our own stamens.

These were definitely too tricky for Bea to do on her own but she was happy to work as a team with me and we produced some pretty great blooms. Eventually Owen, Oliver, and Lila joined in and they all had a great time making the flowers too. By the end of the project we had made two big bouquets...one that was all shades of pink, and a second one that was art directed by Oliver that included red, white, and blue flowers...a very July 4th color scheme! My mom loved them all and seemed very pleased to get to take the bouquets home with her after our birthday dinner together. Happy birthday, Mom...We love you!

p.s. These would be great Easter decorations too!