Snowball Easter Bunnies

I can't believe how fast Easter came along! I meant to get this post done a week ago, but there is still time to get to the store for this fun, kid friendly Easter treat!

This is an Easter tradition from my childhood and I always knew that I would carry this tradition on, with my own family. Anne is still pretty young and was more of a handful than any help, but she still had fun...eating the marshmallows. Silly girl.

When I was younger we made our bunnies with the Snowballs but just used paper and pins for the features of the face and toothpicks for the whiskers...but that isn't very fun, so we used candy, way more yummy than paper!

For our Snowball Bunnies we used:
Big Marshmallows for the ears with Pink Sprinkles
Candy Eyeballs
M&M's for the nose
Twizzlers Pull & Peel for the mouth
Black Licorice String for the whiskers
and some White Candy Melts for our glue

First we started with the ears. Just take a large marshmallow and cut it on a diagonal.

Then dip the cut side (with the sticky part of the marshmallow) in the pink sprinkles.

Then dip the flat bottom of the ear into the candy melt (you don't need a ton) and stick it on the bunny. Hold it in place until it sets.

Next, is the eyes. I added some color to my eyes with my edible ink Food Writer markers and just outlined the black pupil.

Then I added the eyes, nose and mouth to my bunny by applying a small amount of candy melts with a toothpick and stuck them onto my bunny. For the whiskers I took about an inch long piece of the black licorice string, then very carefully snipped the ends about half an inch to make small whiskers. Then took a toothpick and stabbed a whole into the bunny and stuck the licorice in.

And that's all there is to it. Super easy and lots of fun!

Anne's Picture Display

Last May we blessed Anne (I still can't believe she is a year old!). I made her blessing dress along with a few table decorations. They didn't really turn out the way I wanted them to, so I didn't do a blog post for them like I had originally planned. But I loved the pictures and saying I put with them, so I held onto them until I could figure out what to do with them. And a finally figured it out. One day I was getting her dressed and looked at the opposite wall, her big, empty, white, boring wall. And I just knew what I was going to do!

I started out with two random pieces of styrofoam we had been holding on to (I don't know why, but I'm glad!), some white felt I had left over from Christmas, and a yard or so of material that I had left over from when I made my nursing cover. I only used about half of it.

I ironed the material, I didn't want it to be all wrinkly. I used the felt to add some padding and thickness to the display and it worked perfectly!

I started out by laying the styrofoam on the felt and I cut around it about two inches out. One inch probably would have worked better.

Then I just kind of wrapped it around the back like a present. I used a cool temp glue gun (and glued like crazy) to keep it in place. I pulled it tight so there wasn't any loose material all bunched up and sagging in the front.

Then I did the same thing with the material. Being sure to keep it tight and gluing like crazy to keep it all in place.

And this is where I need to apologize. I meant to take really good pictures at each step, but when I got to this point I just kind of got lost in the project. So just pretend that I show a picture of the front of this perfectly stretched and padded piece of styrofoam.

Next I got some ribbon and kind of did a criss-cross pattern with it. You've seen it before for the picture display boards.

I just glued one end in place, then glued it onto the other side, pulling to make it snug, I didn't want it loose at all. I did that with the whole board. I used two different ribbon widths.
(And this is where I would have, should have showed you a picture of the front with the completed ribbon work.)

Next, the star of the show. These are the center pieces that I made and used for the lunch after Anne's blessing. They are in sad shape after being stored for almost a year, but really they don't look much different from when they first went into storage. Understand now why I didn't blog about it? I used the wrong wire so they were super flimsy.

For this project I just wanted the pictures and the sayings that are on the back side of the pinwheel thingy. So I very carefully ripped the paper away from the pictures (they were glued on pretty good, I didn't want them falling off back when I put them together).

Then the fun part! I played with the layout, trying to find the perfect place for each picture and saying. I added accessories and accent things to fill it in and make it fun. I used some of those gem pebble things, some frog push pins and made a few bows. Then I glued everything down so nothing would fall off. I used the cool temp glue for the material and ribbon. And I used E6000 to glue down the pictures and accent things. I didn't want bumps under the pictures and I didn't want to see glue through the stones and E6000 dries clear and flat and it is strong!

Then to hang it up I just glued on a little loop of ribbon to the back. One in the middle of the little one and two evenly spaced on the big one.

Each of the sayings that I chose to use were little tidbits of advice that I wanted to give her that would hopefully help her as she grew older, just said in a sweet way. So last year when I made these I knew I wanted to keep them and use them for something that she could see every day to help her remember and I think I have succeeded in that goal.