Hippity Hoppity

Happy Easter everyone!

We're a secular house, so Easter means bunnies laying eggs, and roast leg of lamb. Yummy.

Last night the Easter Bunny paid our house a visit bringing too much candy, and hiding brightly colored eggs around the house filled with jelly beans and money. Since the big kids were still awake when the Bunny came, they helped find hiding spots for the eggs, meaning my son was the only child this year looking for eggs.

Of course, all the eggs were discovered before the big kids even woke up.

I'm still struggling to make peace with consciousness.

 I made each of the kids an Easter basket the first year I moved here because they didn't have any. That offends my American celebratory nature.

These are really simple to do.

First, go to your craft shop and look for cotton batting that's in tube form. I'm sure there's a real name for it, but I can't remember it right now, and that bottle of wine last night seems to have made google search not work as well as it normally does. Basically you're looking for something that's 2-3 inches in diameter, and fairly soft.

Then, pick out some scrape material. It can be any color, pattern, texture you want. There's really no limits on this one.

Cut the fabric into thin strips. Roughly an inch wide, but don't bother measuring. Like I said, these are really easy.

Starting at one end of the cotton tube stuff, wrap the material scraps (one strip at a time) around the tube. Make a stitch with some thread every couple of inches or so.

To form the basket, coil the material covered tube forming the bottom of the basket, then building up the sides. Make several stitches in each layer of coil to hold the basket's shape. You can either wrap the material around the tube first and coil later, or wrap as you coil. Totally up to you.

There are as many options for handles as there are people on the planet. Well, probably. I haven't tried to count the people or the handle options. It's an assumption based on the fact that I'm in dire need of a second cup of coffee this morning.

I went with a plastic purse handle for these baskets since their purpose was to hold Easter goodies for over active children, I needed it to be strong enough to cope.

This is the teenage boy's basket after the Easter Bunny came. I was going to share my son's basket full (the empty one up top is his), but it was involved in a sugar fuelled hit and run VERY early this morning. It's now almost 10am, and I don't think the older boy has even managed to crawl out of bed yet!

What's that you say? Skull and crossbones motif not very Eastery? Huh. Guess I shouldn't tell you that we're flying a Jolly Roger today.

Oh! And just for the record- yes, I did perform my motherly duty and ate the ears off my son's chocolate rabbit.