Spring Time Decor Around The House

"Spring is when life's alive in everything."  --- Christina Rossetti

It is always fun to decorate for the holidays.  We all know the biggest is Christmas with Halloween following close behind.  Like I mentioned in a previous post - being "empty nesters" and moving into a new house, much of what we had around, was either given away or thrown away.  Creating new decorations for the house, to share with the readers of the blog, was truly enjoyable 

Let me start with an idea to fill a variety of containers with seasonal flowers or holiday related items.  Baskets are one of my favorites to use around the house and I have all types: willow, metal, wire and wicker.  I have used several different artificial flowers around the house.  As it gets closer to the Easter holiday, I will include some fresh flowers   here and there.  I also used some other interesting containers to hold things like natural looking eggs in other places.

With banners being popular right now, I created two different type.  One is simply rabbit shaped chipboard, that was easily coated with glue and then covered with a variety of Martha Stewart's colored glitters.  They are tied onto a strip of torn cotton fabric, with matching bows adorning each end of the garland.

A second banner was made using egg shaped cut-outs from Michael's creatlogy™ line of creative shapes.  The eggs were covered with fabric.  Using Therm-o-web Heat-n-Bond, I could iron the fabrics to the front and back of the eggs.  The fabrics were trimmed and a strip of constrasting, torn cotton fabric was wrapped around each shape.  The edges were finished by glueing on a cotton lace and pearl bead trim.  I enlarged Sizzix Round-a-bout letters to spell "HAPPY EASTER".  The letters were traced onto yellow fabric that was also backed with Heat-n-Bond, then ironed onto the eggs.  To finish the decorations on the eggs, I added a crystal glitter to the letters for some sparkle, plus Sizzix die-cut butterflies, 3-D flowers and leaves.  Each of the eggs were tied onto a length of white tulle, then added large tulle bows on each end.


Larger butterflies were cut from five different papers using another Sizzix die and then painted with colored glitter glues.  They are adorning a pair of old shutters that frame the opening above the fireplace.

What would Easter be without bunnies or chicks?  Here are my needle-felted version of both.  The bodies are two Styrofoam balls ( 2 1/2" and 3"), they are covered with wool roving from National Nonwovens. (NOTE: the chick was first covered with a light yellow roving, but I added a variegated roving that I had purchased at a quilt show.  I like the color variation it give the chick.)

One Easter decoration I remember as a child were decorated eggs made of sugar with an Easter scene inside.  When I found a large egg at Hobby Lobby, similar to "Funkin" pumpkins, I knew I had to make my version of this childhood egg.  I cut an opening in the egg using an X-acto knife.  The egg was aqua blue, so it needed to be painted.  It was given three coats of an eggshell white acrylic paint.  The final coat was an iridescent glitter glue.  The inside was sponge painted with sky blue and white paint.  A platform for the inside was made from two cut pieces of styrofoam.  A green artificial spray was glued to the base as a tree.  The base was glued into the bottom of the egg and left to dry for several hours.  Moss was glued to the the platform to cover, then a fuzzy chick, a glittered egg, some ribbon flowers and a little frog was added to the inside.  A length of tiny lace edging was glued around the opening and the egg was finished with a decorative ribbon and bow.

The family will be coming for Easter dinner and that means some added decorations for the table.  The place settings will consist of a placemat made from a colored paper with the edges punched using a Martha Stewart's Punch Around the Page set.  Napkins are folded into a rabbit shape and adorned with a band punched with another decorative border punch.  A little basket will be placed at each setting and tagged with a name.  They are cut from Sizzix Scoreboard Box with lid die and then covered with a strip of paper ribbon with a natural wood covering.  Each will be filled with paper grass and Lindt chocolate carrots and bunnies.

My favorite Easter decoration is a large basket with real grass growing inside.  It will hold a cute muslin bunny and dyed eggs and maybe some tiny pots of primroses or violets.

Hope my ideas inspire you!  Feel free to contact me for any information concerning the projects.  Please continue to hop along through the other blogs for more inspiration.  You can see them all by clicking forward or back from the blue web ring button that you will find just to the right of this post.