Easter Chick clipart

Posted on November 16, 2011 by admin

Hi everyone

I drew this cute chick in its shell today and hope you like it.

Posted in Easter Clipart | Leave a comment

Three Easy Easter Activities

Posted on October 17, 2011 by admin

Stuck for things to do over Easter? How about keeping the kids amused and away from the Xbox with some traditional Easter activities. They are all really simple to do, great fun for all ages and don’t cost a fortune.

Egg Decorating

Painting eggs is really easy and a great way of creating Easter decorations for the home. Once decorated they can be hung from bunches of twigs in vases or sat in egg cups and displayed on your mantelpiece.

Before starting to decorate the eggs, you will need to blow them. This involves making a hole either end of the egg with a needle, making one hole slightly larger than the other. When making the larger hole make sure the needle pierces the yolk as this will make it easier to remove the contents. Then, holding the egg over a bowl, blow through the smaller hole and the contents of the egg should come out via the larger hole. Leaving you with a completely hollow egg ready for decorating. Just remember to make sure your egg is at room temperature before you start, an egg straight out of the fridge is much harder to blow.

Once you have your empty egg you can get creative with paint, pens, glitter, sequins, paper, pipe cleaners to create patterns or characters. How about setting the decorators a challenge to create an egg that captures the likeness of a friend or family member?

Easter Card Making

Another really simple idea for an alternative to giving Easter eggs to friends and family is to create custom made cards.

You can pick up coloured card relatively cheaply from craft or stationery shops that will create your base for the card. Fold this in half and then start decorating with cut out Easter shapes, paint, crayons, glitter, twigs, pictures from old Easter cards or magazines. For anyone stuck for ideas giving them a theme to work from might help get their creative juices flowing. Easter chicks, Spring, humorous, Easter eggs etc. Or they could make it personal to the recipient. Mum, dad, grandpa, sister, best friends etc.

Another great way of making your cards really unique is to think up an Easter poem for the inside of the card. Perhaps set this as a competition for the kids to see who comes up with the best one?

Chocolate Easter Nests

Making chocolate Easter nests could not be easier. All you need is:

1 box of shredded wheat (16 large biscuits)
400 grams of milk chocolate
Mini eggs for decorating (about 200 grams)
A big bowl for mixing it together
A small bowl for melting the chocolate
30 cupcake cases

Start by crushing up the shredded wheat biscuits into the large bowl. Then break the chocolate into small pieces and melt in the microwave on a low heat. Remember to give the chocolate a stir every 30 seconds or so.

Once melted pour the chocolate into the large bowl and give everything a good stir until the chocolate evenly coats the shredded wheat.

Finally put a large spoonful of the mixture into a cupcake case and press the centre of the mix down slightly (creating somewhere to put the mini eggs). Press the mini eggs into the middle of each chocolate nest and refrigerate for around an hour until the chocolate has set.

Whenis is a really useful resource giving you lots of information about Easter and other popular holidays and festivals. When is Easter, what to do over Easter, traditional Easter celebrations and lots lots more.

Posted in Easter Crafts, Easter Decorations, Easter Recipes | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Easy Asparagus Soup Recipe

Posted on June 2, 2011 by admin

The very first British asparagus starts to come into season around the time of Easter and makes a great starter to any Easter menu.

Here’s a very simple asparagus soup recipe which you can whip up in minutes.

Ingredients

  • a glug of olive oil
  • one large onion – finely chopped
  • 2 cloves of garlic – finely chopped
  • 1 large handful of asparagus – tough bottom bits snapped off and the remainder chopped into 1 inch pieces
  • chicken or vegetable stock
  • a splosh of single cream
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • a couple of slices of toasted sourdough bread (any bread will do but I love the texture and flavour of sourdough and think it goes really well with this soup).

Optional extra veg:

  • When I’m making this soup I often add extra veg that I have knocking about in the fridge.  At the moment I’m making this soup with a couple of small courgettes added to it.  Another great flavour with asparagus is peas (a couple of handfuls of frozen peas works best), or a finely chopped leek.  Half the joy of cooking is experimenting with flavours to find new and tasty combinations.

(We have now just eaten the soup with the additional courgettes and it’s a hit.  Something to definitely try if you’re looking for ways to vary this soup.)

Method

In a medium sized pan heat the olive oil and then add the chopped onions and garlic.  Heat over a low to medium heat until soft then add the chopped asparagus (and other veg) and cook for a further minute or so.

Add the stock (just enough to cover the veg) and simmer gently with a lid on for around 10 to 15 minutes.  Long enough for the veg to soften but not turn to a mush.

When the veg are cooked remove the pan from the heat and blend the soup to a silky smooth texture.

Season to taste and then stir through a splosh of single cream.  Check the seasoning again once you have added the cream.

Serve in bowls with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a grind of black pepper with the toasted sourdough on the side.

Extras

A couple of ways of jazzing up this very simple dish are to add a poached egg.  All you need to do is separately poach the egg and add it to the soup (just drop it on the top before you are about to serve).  Asparagus and egg are a classic combination and though this may sound a bit strange I’d recommend you give it a go as it tastes great.

You could also fry some thin slices of pancetta and lay the crispy strips across the top of the soup.  Adding extra texture and flavour to the soup.

 

Posted in Easter Recipes | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Easter chick colouring picture

Posted on May 28, 2011 by admin

A nice simple easter chick for colouring in.

chick colouring in picture

Posted in Easter Colouring Pictures | Leave a comment

Easter poem

Posted on May 28, 2011 by admin

I stayed away from eggs this year
And ate no chocolate bunny
I lost a little bit of weight
And saved a bit of money.

Posted in Easter Facts | Tagged | Leave a comment

bedtime bunny

Posted on May 28, 2011 by admin

I drew this when I was sleepy and it turned out the bunny was sleepy too.

sleepy bedtime bunny

Posted in Easter Clipart | Leave a comment

Cartoon Bunny

Posted on May 28, 2011 by admin

How to draw the easter bunny

As you can see a few simple steps is all it takes. A couple of overlapping circles for the head, a couple mpore for the eyes and away you go.

cartoon bunny wearing a t-shirt

Here is a cartoon of a young bunny wearing a t-shirt. He looks younger than the one I drew in the video  because his eyes are much larger. This is a good image for young kids to color in themselves. Just print it out at whatever size is best. I drew this myself so you are assured it is free for non-commercial use.

Happy Easter.

Posted in Easter Clipart | Leave a comment

Union Jack Easter Eggs

Posted on April 18, 2011 by admin

Here’s one for Brits. The Union Jack looks great as design on an easter egg. Use wool, paint or 3d pens (from craft shops) to draw a design once on either side of a blown egg, so each eggs has two Union Jacks on it.

union jack eggunion jack egg 2

Transfers can also be used, but we found them fiddly. The best way is to mark the designs (elastic bands and pencils are all you need for straight lines on an egg) and then use molten wax to cover the bits you don’t want to colour and finally colour with egg dye. Once the first colour (red) is dry, melt off the wax (hot water is good) , reapply, covering the red and ‘white’ areas and then dye the egg blue. Once dry, melt off the wax and shine with a little baby lotion or varnish the eggs.

Posted in Easter Decorations | Leave a comment

Birds nest baskets

Posted on November 15, 2010 by admin

My mum in law (the shame) showed me this crafty idea.

Take an upturned small bowl, temporarily tape 4 strands of plastic covered copper wire (old telephone cable is perfect) to the bottom then start randomly weaving the strands in and out, always staying close to the bowl. Use more tape to keep the shape as needed, but eventually you can build a bright birdsnest of a bowl that keeps its own shape when the form and tape are removed.

It makes the perfect bowl for displaying small easter eggs as a decorative centrepiece.

Posted in Easter Decorations | Tagged | Leave a comment

Celtic Knotwork

Posted on November 9, 2010 by admin

The early Christians in the British Isles developed a unique artistic style.

celtic cross

Their crosses were decorated with beautiful knotwork patterns.

These knots can be quite easy to replicate and make very unique designs for easter cards, place settings and all manner of decorations.

Much like weaving, the patterns are all about repeating an ‘over – under’ configuration. There are plenty of sites teaching how to make celtic knotwork and this could make an ideal pre easter activity for kids on a wet afternoon.

Posted in Easter Clipart, Easter Decorations | Leave a comment