Happy Easter!

from our home to yours!

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Easter Treats

What kind of treats & desserts are you making this Easter?  There are so many delicious recipes and cute ideas!

Here are some of my favorites from my “Happy Easter” board on Pinterest.  (Sorry, I’m not around this Easter, so I’m not making any fun Easter Treats!

If I were hosting Easter brunch or dinner, I would make this Strawberry Meringue Cake (Southern Living).

Not sure that I would attempt either of these cupcakes as they are bit too detailed for my ability.  But aren’t they beautiful?

These cupcakes are more suited to my baking/decorating ability.

Easter sugar cookies are a tradition with our family.  We’re skipping this year, but we’ll be sure to decorate our bunny, carrots, and egg cookies next year.

Here’s my all-time favorite sugar cookie recipe.  They are the best tasting sugar cookies!   I promise!

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Easter Eggs

I usually have Easter eggs and bunnies all throughout our house at this time of year.  We usually host Easter brunch or dinner at our home, but this year we will be away.  So … since I didn’t decorate much this year, I thought I’d share some of my favorite home decor ideas using Easter Eggs.

Most pictures are on my Pinterest board called “Happy Easter“.   You can follow any of my boards on Pinterest.  (Picture above from Talia Audenart).

Using eggs as containers (or vases) for flowers can add so much to an Easter tablescape.  You can dye the raw eggs first in desired colors.  Crack open the eggs (on the pointed side of egg) and clean out the egg shell.

Small flowers work best (Pansies, lily of the valley, lillac).  I have several old silver egg cups that I found at antique flea markets.  I also have found white, glass egg cups (like upper, left picture) at HomeGoods and online.

For the artistic, handpainted eggs make beautiful decorations.  (Martha Stewart, left and Censational Girl, right).

I found these eggs above at Roger’s Gardens.  They come with ribbons attached — making them adorable hanging from a window or chandelier.

There are many cute egg crafts for kids.  Get out your scrapbooking supplies and decorate colored eggs with ribbons, rhinestones and more.  Or display decorated eggs in the cute muffin/cupcake papers.  (The grass papers are available at Michael’s Craft Store).

You can make beautifully decorated eggs using punched paper.  These eggs above are decorated with flower-punched paper.  Get ready to glue …

And there are many cute Easter desserts and treats to make in the shapes of eggs.  I’ll do a separate post of Easter treats.  Stay tuned…

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Tomato Mania!

This weekend (March 9 – 11), Roger’s Gardens held a Tomato Mania event.  Tomato Mania is the world’s largest heirloom tomato seedling sale.  They have over 150 varieties of heirloom & hybrid tomatoes.  And there are many “tomato experts” to help guide you in your decision of varietals, fertilizer, soil, etc. for a successful tomato growing season.

Jeff is always looking for the best tomatoes to plant in our garden, so we went to Roger’s on Saturday.  WOW!!! I’ve never seen so many tomato plants!  And I’ve never seen so many people at Roger’s.

We asked one of the tomato experts if he could only get 3 or 4 tomatoes, which ones he would choose.  Here’s what he recommended (and what we purchased):

• Sunny Goliath – yellow/gold, very sweet & juicy
• Creme Brulee – deep carmel color with hints of red & chocolate, full-bodied flavor
• Carbon – black, very flavorful
• Green Zebra – yellow & green stripe with citrus flavor

As I walked by all the tomatoes, reading their descriptions, I kept thinking of all the wonderful summer dishes we’ll have this summer.  There’s nothing better than an heirloom caprese salad with home-grown tomatoes.

The checkout line took 40 minutes.  If you don’t mind missing the tomato lectures (Roger’s has a mini amphitheater for lectures), purchase your tomatoes when everyone is listening to the lectures.  It’s a much shorter line.

We kept running into friends on Saturday, so I wasn’t able to browse the rest of the gardens and snap very many photos.

At the checkout (in the Victory Garden area), they have beautiful displays of herbs.

For those of you in California, you can see where other Tomato Mania events are held by viewing their website.  Tomato Mania

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Weekend Gardener

What did you do this weekend?  Here in So Cal, we had 80 degree days!  It was the perfect time to do some gardening.  My hubby and I tackled several outdoor projects that had been on our list for a while.

Project #1:  Replant the driveway planter

We have a sloped planter in between our walkway and driveway.  For the past few years, we’ve had Iceberg Floribunda Roses (white) and Pink Shrub Roses.

I was tired of the shrub roses.  In the summer, they get out of hand, requiring deadheading every few days.  So the hubby dug out the shrub roses and I planted Razzleberry Bushes (also known as Chinese Fringe Flowers) and Mexican Sage (Salvia leucantha).

It doesn’t look like much now (a bit bare), but just give it a couple of months.  The Razzleberry blooms in spring and in fall.  The Mexican Sage has purple blooms most of the year in So Cal — and attracts hummingbirds and bees.

Project #2:  Re-pot Entry Pot

I have a potted spiral juniper tree that sits at our entry.   The tree was only 3 feet when I planted it years ago.  The pot was also black (to match the front doors), but has faded from intense sun.

As you can see, the juniper is now 5 feet tall, a bit out of control and hasn’t been pruned in a while.  Here’s the before picture …

It was quite a challenge getting the juniper out of that pot!!  It took 2 days of soaking … and brute strength from both of us!

Here’s my inspiration for the new plantings … a pot I saw at South Coast Plaza last month.

My pot is a LOT smaller than the one from my inspirational picture, so I scaled down.  I alternated yellow and purple primroses instead of using a double row of flowers around the tall grass.

I will add some ivy.  And then, I will try different methods of trying to turn the pot back to black.  Any ideas?  I can’t just spray paint it, as the pot does get too much sun.  The paint would peel off.

Project #3:  Re-plant my Herb Pots

I have 6 pots for herbs right outside my kitchen.  I planted herbs six years ago and some of them were in need of re-planting.   I planted sweet basil, several types of mint, a large pot of cilantro.  And, I pruned my oregano, parsley and tarragon.

This is what it will look like in a few months …

Overall, a very productive gardening weekend!  Hope yours was a great one!

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May Day Baskets

Can tomorrow really be May 1st?  Wow – where did April go?

It looks like I’ll just have to share a couple of ideas for May Day baskets, as I’ve run out of time.

This beautiful May Basket of pink and cream flowers was created by Design Sponge.  The container is a mason jar.  Click here to get the step by step instructions.

She adds a couple of jingle bells to the ribbon, so when you open the door you hear a little jingle.

Very clever!

This basket of yellow roses with touches of purple is one of my favorites!  Add a hand-written May Day greeting, and you have a beautiful May Day display.   – Teska.com

If you have young kids, it’s fun to make paper cones with ribbon (or pipe cleaner) handles.  Your children can fill the cones with candy, flowers or paper flowers.  Here’s a cute paper cone from SkiptomyLou.org.

Here’s part of my May Day collection from last year.

Happy May Day!

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Happy Easter

Wishing you a blessed Easter!

Natalie and I made Easter sugar cookies today.  We made enough for each place setting for Easter dinner, plus a few more for some friends.  We wrapped them in cellophane bags and tied with ribbon.  A creative day!

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Easter Greetings

Blogging is definitely taking a back seat to work these days.

But, I was able to make a few Easter cards last night and send them off in the mail today.  My favorite was the Easter Chick card I made for Natalie.  I plan to make a more “masculine” version tonight for Nick.

The cards were really quite simple (even the “egg” chick).  It’s all a matter of layering materials … decorative papers, ribbons, paper punch outs, stickers, and rhinestones.

Materials Needed:

• Card stock greeting cards (sold at all craft stores, in a variety of colors and sizes)
• Decorative scrapbook papers
• Coordinating ribbons
• Rubber stamps, ink, punches
• Stickers, rhinestones, buttons and other embellishments
• Scissors, paper cutter, glue

Here’s a few pictures of the materials….

As I have mentioned before, I buy scrapbook paper when it’s on sale at the local craft stores.  I was able to find the butterfly and cupcake stickers on sale for 47 cents at our local Michael’s (3 weeks ago)!

I have quite a few paper punches, but for greeting cards, I tend to use my circle and scalloped circle punches most often.  They make great backgrounds for stickers and other embellishments.

Happy Easter!

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A Lavender Easter Tablescape

Don’t you just LOVE spring flowers?  Trader Joe’s had a beautiful selection of flowers yesterday, so I bought some in shades of lavender.  They were the inspiration for this simple tablesetting for Easter.

You’ll see that I used my white damask bedspread for my tablecloth.  I love using this in the spring and summer!   I added my Waterford pale greenish-blue dishes (a great find at Marshall’s, years ago) and my Lenox etched glassware.

Here is the inspiration for my tablescape … the beautiful purple tulips and lavender stock.  I have some spring and Easter decorations in shades of purple and lavender that I have been using for years.   I knew they would look great with the flowers.  (Real life much better colors than the pictures).

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Happy Spring!

I finally got around to taking a few pictures of Easter and Spring touches in our home.  I hope you are enjoying Springtime!

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