Happy Easter Everyone!!

  SPRING IS HERE!! 

    You know it's April, because it hasn't stopped raining! I'm not complaining though. I lived in Tacoma, WA for about 9-10 months back in 2005-2006. Living in Washington was quite an experience. It rained often, the sky always seemed gray and after a while, I just HAD to get over it. And I did! I can now say, I love rainy days and I am thankful for rainy days! I do however enjoy the warmth of the sun as well and I am so looking forward to absorbing some of it SOON! 

    I want to wish each and every one of you a very, Happy Easter! I feel truly blessed that God is a major part of my family's life! Ever since I was a little girl, I LOVED going to sleep as fast as I possibly could, so I could wake up to that beautiful, CANDY filled basket that the Easter Bunny would bring me. I loved dressing up in the beautiful Easter dresses my mother would buy. Yes, we had the hats, the gloves, the purses and those sweet little patent leather shoes to match! We would arrive at church and all around were smiling faces! We were all so excited to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ! Back then, what I think it meant for my sisters and I was that we could finally eat the candy in our Easter baskets that we had not so willingly gave up for Lent. Little did we know how powerful this day would one day be to us! Now, Easter has such an incredible meaning to me. I'm just so thankful Jesus died so WE may live! 

I have been talking to my daughter, Layla a lot lately about Easter. I want her to really love this day and enjoy all the little blessings that are given to her. I want her to enjoy in her own little way for now, just as I did, because I know one day she will understand just how amazing Easter is! We would normally make Easter eggs with Layla and decorate them with stickers, glitter, dye them, color them with markers or with crayon. This year, I found this AWESOME little idea on Family Fun website and I just HAD to try it out. IF it didn't work, then I would take out the food coloring, and get to decorating those hard boiled eggs! This is the little project Layla, Brooklyn and I created for this Easter :     

 These are seriously one of the EASIEST things I have EVER made!! They take absolutely NO TIME AT ALL!! Here is how you make these adorable little "Nests." 

              Ingredients and supplies you will need:

                   1 Cup of Chocolate  

            (I used Milk chocolate, but I am sure Dark chocolate will do just fine)

                   1 Cup of shredded coconut

               a Piece of Wax Paper

                   Jelly Beans or Chocolate Cadbury eggs,

          which we used, or any other egg shaped candy

            Now: Heat your chocolate just as the directions on the bag suggests. After your chocolate is melted, stir in your cup of coconut. 

           Now you should have a lumpy mixture of chocolate and coconut. I created my "nests" using a tablespoon. I used a heaping spoon full of the chocolate/coconut mixture and placed it on the wax paper. I did this a little "messily" so that they would truly look like "nests." Then I took the same spoon and created a little dip in the "nests" for the "eggs" to sit. After the chocolate cools off a bit, place your "eggs" onto your little "nests" and... you're done! I stuck mine in the fridge so that they'd cool down faster. I think this literally took the girls and I, 15mins to make!

The tags I created for my little "Chocolate Birds Nests" took the longest to create! These tags were inspired by several tags I saw on Splitcoaststampers.com. I used the new SU! set Four Frames. Love this set! I used the large label punch that corresponds with this set to punch out the tag. I then used a little chickie from an old SU! set and to finish it off, I added a pre-made flower. Then I layered my punched frame onto Baja Breeze paper and cut around the frame to create another frame and then did that again using Sahara Sand for my base layer.

 

For this tag, I used the SU! set Four Frames and the I also used the set Easter Blossoms (for the little yellow egg). I used the label punch that corresponds with this set once again and then I layered the punched frame onto Sahara Sand paper and then onto Daffodil Delight. I also used some new White twine from SU!

Below, are the finished products in their cellophane bags made by SU! (We made a total of 5 of these nests with the above recipe). We then finished off the bags by adding some twine and some Very Vanilla Seam binding ribbon. (Can't get ENOUGH of that stuff!) Layla has asked me about ten times today, "Mom, when can we hand out our little nests? I can't wait, Mom! I just can't WAIT!"

I hope you enjoyed my post today. Again, if you have these few ingredients and about 15mins of time, I truly suggest making a few this Easter day! Again, they are super cute, super fun and best of all SUPER easy! 

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask!

Happy Easter, Everyone!

~jenna