This year I tried some german organic easter egg dye along side the last of the food coloring capsules I found in the cupboard. I don't think the colors were notably different, except for a beautiful peacocky/turquoise blue we got out of the german dye. Perhaps it looked so vibrant because the blue was on the lone white egg we had. I think that is my greatest lesson learned: rubber bands, stickers, wax crayon, organic dye, food dye, homemade colors... nothing matters so much as the color of the egg, as the base you begin with.

I always love the idea of projects. Starting them, though, I find difficult. I always worry that I haven't started in the right way, will I have enough time to work on it as mindfully as I like, etc. I think that is part of why I like cooking projects: I have enough skills to be able to evaluate the directions, and enough tools to be able to pickup whatever project I want whenever I’d like.

Once I start any project, I am usually pretty good about finishing it-- even if it takes forever.

But really what I love is the cataloguing, and dreaming, and the fantasy of “what if...”, what if I made this?

So, right now I’m fantasizing about these projects:





Given that I am currently designing our bathroom, dealing with a legal/financial (unpaid) home project, a (paid) research project, knitting a scarf, knitting play food, and working on my goal of “learn to bake with whole grains”, I’m not sure yet when or if these will actually make the queue. But it is nice to imagine.

(and, edit to say that the Purl Soho sale might prompt me to actually make some of these, after all)

My boy loves stamps, stamping and being stamped. He came home from dance class this week with butterfly stamps all over his belly (what a long bath that made for!).

So I really wish I’d seen this tutorial earlier. Nonetheless, it’s definitely an idea we will use sometime in the future.

Instead, we made paper hearts. I have to confess I am a bit baffled by all the candy valentine’s you see these days. Chocolate I get, but when did candy takeover the world? What I remember about St. Valentine’s Day as a kid is the stacks of paper valentines.... my classmates and I would compete to see who had the bigger pile. So much fun to see the different shades of pink, and to realize how many different shapes a heart could really be.






































So, we drew hearts, and wrote out words like love, forever, favorite with my “fancy” crayons, in various shades of red and lavender and pink and orange on large sheets of draft paper. Then I cut hearts out the sheets of paper. So we ended up with hearts of all shapes and sizes with semi-random pops of festive color.

J loves stickers almost as much as stamps... I think all 2 or 3year olds do. So for his playgroup we put a handful of paper hearts and a small square of stickers in some of the red pouches I had leftover from our Advent Calender. These were a big (sugar-free) hit.

Now that that is over, I’m stuck on trying to avoid sugar for Easter. As a child, I received one large chocolate egg at Easter-- but that’s it. I’m not sure if we will give J a chocolate egg this year-- he seems a bit young for it to me-- but we will do an egg hunt and the idea of a special treat in his basket appeals. Right now I’m thinking that I will knit him some play food-- maybe a carrot, and an egg? Any other ideas for a fun, non-candy, small Easter basket treat?