Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Easter Egg Hunt Trophies!

Every year we do a big Easter Egg Hunt for all the kids and it seems to get bigger and bigger as more kids come along! Rather than doing the regular prizes, I decided to spice things up a bit. Last fall I created a repurposed/recycled trophy into something new and glamorous for my pre-teen niece for winning 1st place in her soccer tournament. I thought why not do something like it again, this time for the Egg Hunt. I went searching for some old grungy trophies at a local junk store and found parts to create 3 different trophies...the biggest for finding the most, the middle for finding the median number of eggs and the smallest for the least number of eggs found. Who says coming in last place doesn't deserve a trophy? That one was awarded to little 2-year-old Mya who found 10.5 eggs and 3 rocks! :)

As for the trophies themselves, I used trophy cups at the top. Let's just say they were the perfect place to "nest" all the eggs up top in all their glory! If you are interested in making something similar yourself, here is a somewhat brief tutorial on just that...
1. Find some old trophies and unscrew all the different pieces.
2. For the cups, totally cover the surface with Martha Stewart Glitter Glue and then immediately immerse the cups in tons of glitter! Sounds like fun huh? Warning, it does get very messy. I had glitter on my face for days following! :)
3. Paint any wood elements with robin egg blue paint, and then gently sand down to give it a gently aged look.
4. Assemble all the pieces back together, and then it's time to embellish!
5. Take your 3 eggs and cover them in old book pages with mod podge.
6. Glue some frilly blue/white tissue paper garland from Melissa Frances inside the trophy cup edge.
7. Make accordian rosettes out of paper. The paper I used is from Basic Grey's Urban Prairie Collection. The soft pastels are perfect for Easter.
8. Create centers for the rosettes. I used my computer, but using alpha stickers would be even cuter.
9. Add some fun ribbons to dangle from the rosette & glue to trophy.
10. Lastly, glue the eggs into their "nests" atop the trophy.

That's it! As many of you know, Teacher's Appreciation Week is just around the corner. I am thinking one of these trophies would be a great gift of appreciation. Perhaps putting an apple in the cup? I am sure it would put a smile on any teacher's face!
Thanks for stopping by!
Amy

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

He Is Risen!

I hope everyone had a delightful Easter full of wonderful blessings with family & friends. I did 2 fabulously fun projects for Easter this year. One is a set of prize Easter trophies I will share later this week, and the other is this wonderful wreath completely inspired and lifted from Rhonna Farrer. When I saw her wreath and the banner "He Is Risen" emblazoned across the top I was sucked into the beautiful design and what it represented from the get go.

To start with, I purchased her digital Easter Celebrations: Printable Sayings. I printed and punched the letters out with a scalloped punch. For added dimension, I put some silver stickles and robin egg blue chalk ink around the edges of the scallops. Wrapping the foam wreath in the burlap, I was ready to start adorning with tons of butterflies & flowers. I have lots of pins, and it was so fun playing around with placement of the embellishments on the foam wreath. I used paper & die-cuts from Crate Paper's So Random Collection. The straight pins & darling tiny clothespins are from Maya Road. Twine is from the Twinery & the blue trim is from Webster's Pages. The golden button flower & too cute for words robin's egg nest are from Prima. I got the fluffy feathered tail bird from Michael's as well as the gorgeous, thick aqua ribbon at the top. My favorite added touches at the end were the copper "believe" tag, the vintage millinery leaves & those crazy cute fringed flowers! I haven't made those before, but they were too much fun to make...starting out with the kraft, I loved the look so continued to add more out of the Crate Paper. You'll notice some peaking from behind the big kraft flower and some more of it just above the copper tag. I used my mom's shredding shears to create these flowers with...definitely on the top of my wish list now!

I hope you enjoyed stopping by my blog today, and I thank you dearly Rhonna for your wonderful digitals and fantastically inspirational Easter wreath!
Amy