Easter Blog Hop!

Can you believe Easter is this week? Yikes...it really snuck up on me this year! Usually I have Easter decorations out and am planning crafts and dying eggs and filling Easter baskets well ahead of time, but not this year! If you're like me, you'll be so thrilled with all the ideas on today's Easter Blog Hop. The Creative Memories Content Contributors have come up with lots of great ideas to celebrate the holiday before AND after the fact.

Today I'll be sharing a couple of sweet treats and cute cards you can whip up in the next couple of days in time for Easter, then you can continue along the hop to see some other great projects and layouts - I'll give you all the links at the end of my post. Don't forget to end your hop at the Creative Memories blog - leave a comment once you're there and you could win a great prize!

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I am guilty of being "that mom" who sends treats to the kids in her children's class for every imaginable holiday. Sorry! I can't help it...I love coming up with the treat ideas and spoiling all the kids with them (and sneaking some myself while I'm making them!) These favors are super easy, can be made with basic supplies and adapted to any size/treat that you want!

To make the favors:

• Cut as many pieces of cardstock as you need to 3" x 9" lengths. Lay each strip on your 12" inch Straight Trimmer with the edge at 4" and use your Multipurpose Tool to score along the cutting guide. Move the edge to 5" and score again.

• Fold along score lines so that the space between the lines becomes a 1" base for your favour to stand on. Use the 2-Way Corner Rounder to round or notch all four upper corners.

 

 

• Create a window for your sweets to show through by cutting a circle, scalloped circle or other shape on the front side of the favour using a punch or the Custom Cutting System.
  

• Place your treats in small plastic bags (mine are from my local dollar store's craft section and measured 2" x 3"), seal them and staple them in between the top edges of the favour to hold it all together. You can adapt these favours to any size or type of treat...In the photos below you'll see that I packaged pastel M&M's or Hershey Eggs into the small plastic bags, used Cadbury Easter Cream Eggs on their own on a bed of paper grass and used individual packages of Mini-Eggs as-is...all of these treats worked well! 

• Now let's decorate! The green favours got a white fence thanks to the Picket Fence Border Maker Cartridge, and I wove a thin strip of patterned paper from the Pretty in Pastel Paper Pack through the openings. More thin strips and some flowers punched with the Blossom Place n Punch were added to the top to cover the staple. I wrote a simple message on a white 1" circle cut with the smallest circle and the blue blade of the Custom Cutting System and used it as the centre of the flower.

• I used pink cardstock (Shades of Red Paper Pack) and patterned paper from the Pretty in Pastel Paper Pack to create the next favours. The windows were punched with the Blossom Place n Punch, which was also used to create the decorative flowers at the top. Thin strips were trimmed at the end into banner and ribbon-like fasteners, and layered with the blossoms and a 1" white circle. Messages were hand written with the Black Dual-Tip Pen.

 

• For the Bird House favours, I used the darker brown cardstock (Shade of Neutral Paper Pack). I placed a light pencil mark at the centre of the top edge and 1.5 inches down from the top edge each side, then cut on a angle from the top mark to each side mark to form the pointed roof of the bird house. I used the medium Custom Cutting System template and the red blade to make the window. I snipped some green cardstock (Shade of Green Paper Pack) into thin strips and adhered them to the inside of the base and placed the Creme Egg candies on top of the grass. I also snipped a border of green grass and mounted it along the outside bottom edge. Once again, a thin banner, a blossom flower and a white 1'' circle embellished the favours. 

 

• The blue favours (Shades of Blue Paper Pack) had oval windows cut into them and a strip of flowers made with the Lace Flower Chain Border Maker Cartridge was added along the bottom edge. An extra lace flower snipped from the excess border was added to the blossom flower and topped with a small blue gem from the Pastel 2 Embellishment Pack.

• Finally the purple favours (Shade of Pastel Paper Pack) had large circular windows cut into them to show off the larger treats inside, and were topped with thin banners, dimensional paper flowers and purple gems from the Pastel 2 Embellishment Pack.

 

I like them all, but I think the birdhouse is my favorite!

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Besides making and sharing sweet treats, I also love making and sending seasonal cards...why should cards be relegated to Christmas? I like to drop a card in the mail to friends and family who aren't close by to let them know I care, no matter what time of year it is. These "Bunny Bum" and "Bunny Face" cards are a cute way of showing them I am thinking about them!

The cards were simple to make with patterned woodgrain paper from our Fall-In Paper Pack to resemble a tree trunk or fence, some white cardstock for the card base, scraps of pink and green cardstock and some flower embellishments. I also used the Circle and Oval Custom Cutting System Templates and Blades and the new Thought Bubble Punch.

To make the cards:

• Use your 12" Straight Trimmer to cut the card bases from solid cardstock cut to 8.5 x 5.5 inches (you can get two cards from a 12 x 12 piece of cardstock with scraps leftover for the bunny pieces). Score cards at 4.25" with the Multi-Purpose Tool and fold in half.
• Cut the woodgrain paper (or any patterned paper of your choosing) into 4" x 5.25" pieces. Mount on top of card base. Cut a solid coordinating color cardstock to the same size to add later to the inside of the card. (I used the darker brown from the Shades of Neutral Paper Pack.)
• Open card base and lay flat on Custom Cutting System mat. Use the small circle template and the red blade to cut a circle through both the patterned paper and the card base. You'll want to cut the circle at the lower half of the card for the Bunny Bum card, and through the upper half for the Bunny Face card. Set aside.

• For each Bunny Bum or Face, cut one white circle with the small circle template and blue blade, two white ovals with the second smallest oval template and the blue blade, two pink ovals with the smallest oval template and blue blade. You'll also need some smaller pink circles for the nose, tail and toes. I used the Bubbles Border Maker Cartridge and gathered up all the little bubbles that it punched, but you could use a small circle punch or a hole punch instead.

• For the ears and/or feet, adhere one small pink oval inside one larger white oval as shown.
• To assemble Bunny Face, adhere ears to top of head and nose to center of face. Draw on face features as shown with Black Dual-Tip Pen.

• Adhere lower edge of Bunny's Face on the inside of the circle hole of card as if he is peeking out from inside the tree or fence hole! Keep his ears outside the hole.

• To assemble Bunny Bum, glue feet to large circle pointing downwards. Add three small pink circles to his feet and another to the top half of the white circle to resemble a tail.

• Adhere to card base on the outside of circular hole as if the bunny was jumping into the hole head first and we are seeing only his rear end! 

• Adhere the solid piece of cardstock to the inside of the card behind the Bunny Bum or Face to provide some contrast between the white bunny and the inside of the white card.

 

• To finish off each card, punch a Thought Bubble from your choice of colored cardstock. Stamp or write your choice of sentiment on it with a Black Dual-Tip Pen and adhere to card with Foam Squares for a bit of pop.
• Add a natural looking embellishment to the lower portion of the card...I hand cut some grass from the same green cardstock that the Thought Bubbles were punched from and added a flower embellishment and rhinestone gem from the Pastel 2 Embellishment Pack to each card to finish them off.

Aren't they adorable? My friends and family will be tickled to receive them! 

I hope I have inspired you to create some cards or favours (or both!) in time for Easter. If you do I'd love to hear about it! post a comment below with a link to your creations or post a photo on my Organized and Creative Mom Facebook page!

But before you stop to make some cards and treats, make sure you hop on by the rest of the stops on our Blog Hop! Next up is Sarah's blog, and here's a list of all the stops to make sure you don't miss any!

Stop #1 - My Blog - You are here!
Stop #2 - Sarah Fitzgerald's Blog
Stop #3 - Candace Bouldin's Blog
Stop #4 - Julie Tambrini's Blog
Stop #5 - Diana Miller Brinsley's Blog
Stop #6 - Stefani Jones' Blog
Stop #7 - Lisa Brown Graham's Blog
Stop #8 - Fran Allen Smitherman's Blog

Stop #9 - Creative Memories' Blog

Have fun, and Happy Easter!