Easter At Home

Easter is probably the prettiest holiday there is. I adore soft pastel colours and they are just so typical of Easter. In my family we usually decorate our homes with hints of Easter just as we do with Christmas. You don't have to spend a fortune - just look around in a few craft stores or even your own garden to gather a few Easter items and to get the spirit of Easter going in your own home. 

Here are just a few cute and easy images I found online. They are all easy to do yourself and will cost you next to nothing. 

Grass Nests and Felt Eggs

These small nests are available at any large florist or crafts outlet. They are so versatile and you can use them from underplates (as I've done in many of my events) or just as decor to add to a theme. Felt material is also available in various colours at most fabric stores. These tiny eggs aren't difficult to make. Just add a bit of moss or even a few leaves or twigs with a small name tag and you have created a place name tag for your Easter table or just a tiny piece of Easter decor. 

Easter Egg Trees

I absolutely love Easter Trees and you will not find my home without at least one during April! They are so easy to make. Scout around in your garden (especially now) for dried or dead branches. Place it in a ceramic pot or a pot of your choice and display on a table or server in one of your rooms. You can add various Easter decor items to the tree. I usually use Easter eggs that I've collected over the years, but you can even make your own Easter egg cut outs on beautiful scrapbook paper or even ask your children to paint a few hollowed eggs and use them on your tree. 

Hand Stitched Easter Eggs

These hand stitched eggs are just adorable and if you are skilled with a needle and thread, I'm sure this will be a piece of cake! They key is to use different materials and textures. As illustrated in the image, they've used lace, felt and other cotton materials. This creates a layered and interesting effect. You can buy polystyrene at most crafts outlets - they make the perfect inner to cover with your material with. 

Egg Stand Flowers

If you have a few egg stands and haven't used them in quite some time, now is the time to dust them off and put them to new use. These easy to make yourself flower arrangements will add just the right ambience to your home to welcome the Easter! You can either use coloured eggs to add to the height and colour as they've done in the image, or use them as they are and place a few freshly picked garden flowers in your egg stand. Group them together in uneven numbers and use them either on a side table in your living room or as small flower arrangements on your Easter table. 

Personalized Buckets and Baskets

We have an Easter egg hunt every year on Easter Sunday, no matter how old you are. It's so much fun and is just another family activity everyone can enjoy. These personalized buckets are such a cute way of adding to the Easter holiday spirit. You can either hand paint these or if this is too much trouble, why don't you add a large name tag to each basket? Add a few colourful ribbons too. These buckets are versatile and can be used after wards as ice buckets, knife and fork holders at a party or anything else you can think of! 

Grass Holders

Grass is so fitting to Easter and nowadays you don't only see them oustide your home anymore! People have used these as decor items inside for quite some time, and so can you! If you start growing your grass arrangements now, they will be ready just in time for Easter. They are easy to grow yourself and the seeds are available at any local nursery. If you don't have time to go to the extreme of nurturing a few grass arrangements, buy grass plants and plant them in the containers of your choice and use them as is. Add a few quirky Easter decor items or even a few chocolate Easter eggs will do just the trick!

Easter Goody Bags

These little goody bags are easy to make if you can gather a good dose of patience. They are pretty easy to make, but time consuming. All you will need for the project will be white paper bags, cellophane to cover the inside of the cut out area, a stencil, colourful ribbon and tasty goodies for your goody bag. Have a look online for cut outs or stencils. You can even look in some children's books - you might find beautiful images of rabbits or chicks to trace. 

Pastel Coloured Cookies

Try and add a bit of colour to your kitchen creations too this Easter and make colourful biscuits, cookies and cakes. A little bit of food colouring can add just the right touch to your favourite recipe. Place them on a tray or even in a little wicker basket and add to your Easter decor. If you aren't a big cook, look out for some crafty and colourful biscuits and confectionaries in your local deli or supermarket. 

Colourful Wreaths

Wreaths add such a warm feeling to any home. You can use them inside or outside your home, but the prefect spot would probably be right at your front door. Although the colourful wreath in the image is for the more skilled crafter, you can easily purchase wreath rings at large florist. Decorate them with a few hollow eggs, feathers or anything you might think will work. I've seen quite a few wreaths covered in only ribbon. Purchase satin (these will be the most pocket friendly) in 3 or 4 soft pastels colours and wrap them around the wreath until you have covered the entire wreath in ribbon. You can change and add your wreath each year for Christmas and Easter to match the season!

The Candy Man Came

I completed the Candy Coated Wonderland birthday party over the weekend.

Click on the link below to have a look at uploaded images of the finished product:
Candy Coated Wonderland Birthday Party

Cute Monster

A while back I posted a how to on a quirky bird mobile set you and your friends could make. I found this lovely monster friend on the same website. Such a cutie!

Click here to go to the instructions.

Candy Coated Wonderland

The Candy Shop

Popcorn Lolli Stands

 Lunch Bags and Name Tags

Candy Shop Jars 

Lollipop String

Guest Welcome Drink

I finished the Candy Coated Wonderland party over the weekend and although the weather didn't play along, the colours of the party certainly brightened things up! 

No candy party is complete without a candy shop. We created a candy shop for guests to take candy home in coloured bags. To add character to the candy shop, we designed and added food labels to the jars and tied them together with a few satin ribbons. And then off course, bunting flags.  I made use of a lot of the bunting flags - they added the perfect touch. 

Other decor items included a string of covered wooden lollipops and candy cane's at the entrance door. It set the mood as the guests walked in with their colourful welcome drinks.  Another item was the chinese lanterns. I used red, green and blue lanterns and they where hung above and around the kiddies table. And lastly, I made use of popcorn quite a bit. Popcorn can be made a several colours and they are an affordable way of adding 'candy' to the decor.  You can add them to centerpieces (as I did) or even put a few on a string to be hung from the ceiling for extra fun!

Candy Coated Storyboard

I am terrible excited about my new project. I am doing another birthday party pretty soon and just finished the storyboard and presentation thereof. The theme will be a Candy Coated Wonderland for a birthday party of a 1year old boy. We decided on a colour palette of aqua blue, green's and red as the main colours. 

Once again, I will post my progress on the event as I go along to help you with your own Candy Coated birthday party planning.  

Lollipop Invitations

The invitations were sent out and I took some cute photo's of the boy wearing an oversized bow tie and a colourful candy cane lollie. The invitations were made up as lollipops on wooden sticks to keep it fun, playful and theme fitting. He had so much fun and the bow tie didn't bother him one bit! Such a good poser.  

Paris Chic Bridal Shower

I recently had a request to post some tips and ideas on bridal showers. I found this lovely Paris inspired Bridal Shower online and thought I'll share it with you. 

This type of set up is pretty easy to do with enough planning. Once again, you need to stick to your colour theme and choose 3 main colours and build your event decor on that. They chose a sophisticated colour palette of lavender, black and white and used different shades of lavender here and there to give it a bit of depth. You will be amazed at how many different types of decor items you will be able to find in different shades and different textures of your specific colour. They incorporated lace, polka dots, stripes and doilies to give the overall theme a bit of texture. 

The use of the hatboxes as treat trays is such a clever way of incorporating the Paris theme.  Should you not be able to find boxes in the colour you need, you can always recover them with gift paper or even paint them. Use ribbon and scrapbook embellishments to decorate them and give them extra sparkle. 

I particularly like the vintage dresser as the cake table. Using various smaller cakes instead of one large cake is such a interesting way of adding to your food decor. As you will see in the image they used the cakes to further add to the theme and each cake had a unique themed look. The big pink garter cake is my absolute favourite!

To add to the soft and lacy Parisian theme, use a lot of ribbon. Use it around your cake stands, on the chairs or even tie the knives and forks together to add to the food table display. You can buy beautiful satin ribbon at almost any Metro or fabric shop - they are usually cheaper at fabric stores than anywhere else. 

Lastly, event stationary. People always tend to forget to add a few personal touches here and there, but it gives your event a classy touch. Take some time and cut out a few handwritten notes or even print out a few Eiffel Towers and a few printed notes. This usually takes up a lot of time, but get all the bridesmaids together and make it a team effort. Visit your local scrapbook shop and look around at what they've got. Various scrapbook shops offer ready cut-outs in various shapes and sizes - you might even be able to pull it off and look like a professional! 

3 Clever Storage Ideas

Consol Jars

Iron Tins

Bonne Maman Jam Jars 

I've been looking around for some clever ideas to rearrange a work desk in my office. I work with quite a  few small craft items and need to store them in small containers to create an organized work space. I found these images online as inspiration and thought I'll share them with you. 

All three ideas are so easy to do yourself. I love the coloured Consol bottles in the first image. I particularly like the way they stored the ribbon - such a practical way of keeping your ribbon neat and organized. I adore the iron tins and the rustic set up in the second image. These tins aren't always easy to find, but I recently saw a few shapes and sizes at various Crazy Stores.  On the third image I love the red and white Bonne Maman jam jars. The Bonne Maman brand is easy to find in almost any supermarket. Their jams are yummy too! Once empty, you can attach and secure the top part of the jam jar to a wooden shelf. Only screw the glass off if you need an item. Clever, quick and easy!  

Symbolizing Growth

Over the past few weeks I've been working on a launch for one of my clients in conjunction with Blue is The Word. 

The client wanted a growth inspired event to symbolize the growth process that their company initiates through guidance and other services they offer their clients. A few ideas where used to give impact with the growth theme. 

Some creative ideas included:

In stead of a red carpet we used a grass carpet. The grass carpet was repeated inside the venue at the food table to give high impact. A few corporate gifts were given out which included oak chopping boards with the company logo and Mr Grassheads. These Grassheads are so much fun and people really enjoyed them. The flowers were mostly done out of tree stumps to further symbolize the growth process. Grass pots were also placed around the venue to pull the theme through.