An "Egg"cellent Tradition by Duck Momma

Easter is only a couple days away, that means tomorrow night is egg dying night! It will be a first for little Goose but a very long standing tradition in my family. But making the eggs look beautiful is only the beginning. My grandmother was Greek and she taught us all the traditional egg cracking. Everyone has their special egg, and finds a partner. You take turns tapping egg ends (pointier end to pointier end and fat end to fat end). The person with the least cracked egg wins! We have spread this madness to many families through the years, and maybe now  to yours? It is so much fun and if you have a perfect (no cracks)egg at the end, you can save it indefinitely. The insides just dry and turn into a rattle almost. My Grandma always kept mine year after year. . . Come to think of it maybe she let me win just so she could have my egg. . . (I miss her)

Grandma also taught us another important tradition. Its how we always greet each other every Easter. I am going to attempt to spell it, I apologize sincerely for my terrible Greek spelling and punctuation. (Verbally we have it mastered, writing it. . . not so much)
First Person: "Christos A'Nesti"
Second Person:"A'Li thos A'Nesti"
Which means (if spelled correctly ;-) )"Christ is Risen" "He is Risen indeed"

May your Easter be blessed and full of your own family traditions! Now I have to go fulfil my role as Easter Bunny intern and make sure we have everything for Goose's Easter Basket!

Mr. Meow: A Sock Puppet by Duck Momma

Why must dryers eat socks? Where do they go? Its like somewhere between washer and dryer and drawer there is an interruption of space and time... a sock twilight zone... And what do we do with those poor single socks left behind? We make sock puppets!

Mr. Meow was really pretty easy. A few tiny pieces of felt scrap, a lone sock, and some thread should do it.

His ears are made by folding the points of a triangle together and stitching them together. I tacked each ear approximately where I wanted and then continued all the way around. Its easiest with your hand in puppet position but be careful!

His nose and eyes are simply felt that I stitched together. A blanket stitch works very well.

It took a couple tries to get all his features where I wanted but in the end perfection doesn't really matter. Goose was impressed.

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Upcycle project 2: Mmm Strawberries by Duck Momma

I am so excited about this project.  I love strawberries. Not only are they one of my favorite foods, but they always inspire a feeling of summer and family. My mom and I pick strawberries every year and spend a day making the most amazing freezer jam. (I will be coming back to this closer to strawberry time, it will be little Goose's first year!) It has always been special to me.

These adorable little berries are made from a pair of pajamas that had a worn hole in the toe. I couldn't fix the hole but I saw a whole (yay puns!) new opportunity. Not only do I love the berries as I mentioned, I love simple toys. I want Goose to learn about her world and use her imagination. I also love cooking and I want to share that with her. Finally we love The Very Hungry Caterpillar and I am working on tangible "food" to count and observe as he eats!

• So with all that inspiration I started out by cutting out all the whole strawberries. and trimming them up.
• Next I stitched them back to back using a blanket stitch, (thanks Tomato Momma!) and began stuffing.
• It was then just a matter of repeating until I was finished! And 9 berries later, I have a very happy baby.

They are squishy and easy to hold. She was so excited about them, talk about success! Her selection of felt and cloth food is growing and hopefully so is her mind! We have already had so much playing with these fun little bites, I can't wait for the next wave of inspiration.

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Quick Fix: Baby Britches by Duck Momma

Baby clothes are so sweet. I especially love the little outfits that look like 'real' pants. However my little one is the quintessential sweet chubby baby. Those adorable little thighs have so many cute rolls and dimples. I actually had a lady tell me she could just chew on her cheeks... that was a little strange. Anyway, I never expected to have such a challenge with clothes. Sizes vary as much as grown up clothes! So you can imagine my dismay when all the pants we bought her for Christmas were too tight to pull over those legs!

So I found a quick and easy solution to fix these tight front trousers.

- make a nice clean cut where the fly should be. If its not as clean as you like a couple blanket stitches are helpful.

- I then cut two small slits on each side creating a wide belt loopesque opening. The material shoul be double layered, so be careful to only slit through the top.

- Be sure to avoid snipping any elastic, that would be not so good.

- I then thread some pretty ribbon through the loops and around the back. Any ribbon you like or have is fine. I had a few different types about.

- The ribbon is removable for washing and also for reuse when she out grows these pants.

 

This is just one inexpensive and easy solution I found. There are certainly many options but I was quite pleased with the simplicity of this. Quick and easy!

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