Easter Archives - girl. Inspired.

Tabletop Hot Air Balloon Sewing Pattern

March 24, 2016 by girlinspired 1 Comment

Are you ready to deck your party table with these darling balloons? This tabletop hot air balloon sewing pattern is perfect for stitching up some truly special decorations. Use these balloons for Easter brunch, a baby shower or birthday party, or to decorate your little one’s bedroom. Aren’t they just the cutest? They’re also a cinch to make!

Ready to make some? Gather your supplies, then click here to download the Hot Air Balloon Sewing pattern, print it out, and you’re ready to go.

Supplies:

Hot Air Balloon Sewing Pattern
1/3 yard cuts of three different quilting cotton fabrics
ric rack or mini-pom pom trim for balloon base
non-inflated standard balloons (white)
paper snack cups (for balloon “basket”)
burlap (enough to wrap around the snack cup)

Let’s Sew!

Use the sewing pattern to cut out a total of six “hot air balloon” pieces, on the fold. Two of each pattern work well, though you could use up to six different patterns. Open the pieces and press well. Spray with starch and iron again for added structure.

Lay out your pattern pieces in the order you’d like them arranged. Arrange them in two sets of three.
Place two pieces right sides together and stitch down one side (taking note of the sides that need to be stitched together to maintain the arrangement), using a 1/4″ seam allowance.
Fold open the stitched pieces and match right sides together to join the third piece into the arrangement.
Repeat for the other set of three pieces.
Matching right sides together and the top points of the balloon, pin the two halves of the balloon together.
Stitch all the way up, over, and down to form the balloon.

Use pinking shears to trim seam allowances (this makes much faster work of clipping the seams and allows the balloon to turn out more smoothly)
Fold the raw edges of the balloon bottom under 3/8″ and then 3/8″ again. Press well.
With the balloon turned inside out, topstitch around the bottom of the balloon to secure the hem.
With a zipper foot on your sewing machine, align the mini pom pom trim to hang off the finished bottom edge of the balloon and stitch to secure in place. (optional)
Press any wrinkles out of the balloon shell.
Place a latex balloon inside the balloon shell and inflate it, pulling the shell down over the balloon until it snugly fills out the sewn shell. Tie a knot in the balloon to secure.

Getting there! It just needs a basket! You can use any little basket you like.

For the little Easter basket balloon above, I simply pulled the fabric balloon top down over a mason jar and then tucked it into the fabric lined basket filled with “grass.”

I found that little paper snack cups work GREAT as hot air balloon baskets. I covered the very bright pattern on the snack cup with some gray acrylic paint and then hot glued a strip of burlap all the way around the cup.

Pull the hot air balloon over the burlapped snack cup and presto! ADORABLE hot air balloon!

It’s important to note that the balloons will gradually deflate, so if you are using these for party decor, you might wish to hold off on inflating the balloons until the day before or so. You can also tie the balloon end so that it can be unknotted and re-inflated. For more permanent room decor, you can also fill the balloon shell with batting.

Easy Easter Candies

March 10, 2016 by girlinspired 2 Comments

Ready for the cutest little egg stuffer? Whip up a pile of these easy Easter candies and have that extra something special in your baskets this year. I’m always on the lookout for cute items beyond the sacks of supermarket candy and I find that it really costs a pretty penny to get specialty candies. I made these nonpareils and they are so simple, cheap, and cheery, I just had to share.

They look so festive in cellophane bags and they also fit nicely in little plastic Easter eggs. Care to make some for your family?

The steps are practically self-explanatory. Grab a bag of chocolate melting wafers – they’re already in perfect shape and they melt/harden quickly and easily. Spread in a single layer on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Heat your oven to at least 200 degrees. You’re going to pop your cookie sheet into the oven for about 1 minute – so you can heat the oven to 350 degrees, but if you’re just making a few candies, it might not even be worth it to heat the oven completely. Anyhow, place the cookie sheet in the oven and watch carefully – as soon as the top of the candies turn glossy, pull them out and coat well with tiny round sprinkles. Place cookie sheet in the refrigerator or freezer for about 10 minutes until the candies have completely re-hardened and you’re done!

I think this qualifies as the simplest candy making I’ve ever done! And they’re adorable! Have fun!

Easy Bunny Cupcakes

March 31, 2015 by girlinspired 1 Comment

Just in time for Easter, today we have a really simple cupcake decorating technique that anyone can pull off! Whip these up in a snap and you’ll be right back outside hunting for eggs with everyone else!

Have you seen these pre-made icing decorations? They are the ticket to easy cupcakes and you can find so many different varieties for all the occasions. I thought the bright, cheery colors of these bunnies was fun and adorable – they can be placed on the cupcakes lying down or standing up in the grass. The only work to do is to pipe grass onto the top of the cupcakes and your base is ready. Let’s get started!

SUPPLIES:

12 cupcakes baked in paper liners
icing stiff enough for decorating – buttercream works great
Wilton Icing Decorations – bunnies
16-inch disposable decorating bag
Coupler set
Decorating Tip #233
Green food coloring

With your cupcakes baked and cooled, fill your piping bag with green icing and fit it with tip #233. Starting at the outer edge of the cupcake and working in a counter-clockwise direction toward the middle, create a swirl of icing strands to mostly cover the top of the cupcake. This gives a background to the grass that will blend seamlessly with the grass spikes. Now, place the tip of the icing bag perpendicular and close to the top of the cupcake. Squeeze gently while pulling up and away from the cupcake. Release the pressure on the icing bag as soon as you begin lifting your hand away. This will keep the grass strands short. Continue piping across the top of the cupcake until you are happy with the grass bed. Gently place the bunny icing decoration on top of the grass to finish it off. If you would like the bunny tilted up just a bit, pipe a little extra grass underneath to lift it.

And there you have it! The cutest little Easy Bunny Cupcakes you ever did make! Now, I’m off for more spring break fun! What are you working on this week? Perhaps I should figure out Easter dresses for the girls….

**This post was first published on The Creative Spark.**

Sharpie Easter Eggs

March 24, 2015 by girlinspired 3 Comments

I’ve been working hard to clean out my craft room and I have come across SO many supplies for projects that I’ve never completed. One of those projects was the Pinterest-popular “Sharpie Mug”, which looked so easy and fun, I couldn’t resist a fresh, white mug and a new packet of metallic Sharpie pens! I found these supplies amongst other forgotten projects and took some time yesterday to finally make my mug! I used some vinyl that I had on hand and found a sewing machine silhouette in the Cricut Design Space library to use as my image.

The project seems pretty self-explanatory – put your image onto the mug, polka dot your metallic permanent markers all around it, peel off and you’re done! I found that the vinyl didn’t make quite tight enough of a seal and some of the ink smeared under it just a tiny bit. I might try a different material next time, but it turned out cute enough!

While I had the Cricut pulled out and lots of colored Easter eggs on hand, I used the same concept to make some Sharpie Easter eggs! All of the images were available in the Cricut library. I also tried some text, which turned out to be a fun addition! The images needed to be under an inch big in order to fit and be visible on the side of the eggs. The text images fit sideways and I like how they fill the space! I’m sure you could also use stickers that come with some of the dye kits out there!

Color your eggs first and then apply the vinyl/stickers. I did try applying the vinyl and then dipping the eggs to be dyed, but the vinyl peels off, so that’s not a workable material for that purpose. Use the Shapie pens to tightly dot or outline around the perimeter of the shapes. Then, begin dotting further away from the shape, with more dots concentrated closer to the shape. Peel off the vinyl and you’re done!

What do you think? Worth the effort? I think kids would have fun with these, too! And I have a whole package of every color Sharpie – rainbow silhouettes would be fun, too!

Lots of possibilities! Have fun!

Monochromatic Easter Eggs

March 16, 2015 by girlinspired 3 Comments

This post is brought to you by PAAS. All opinions are 100% my own. You can find more information about PAAS Easter Egg Decorating Kits here or connect with them on Facebook.

In case you don’t already know, I love pretty things. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with dying Easter eggs. It’s such a fun, creative process, and yet, it’s so hard to get the perfect egg. And then once you get it? You have to crack it open to eat it and discard all your hard work! Such torture! But I’ve found the perfect solution. I started blowing out eggs for decorating last year and I’m hooked! It takes some work to keep the shell intact while you get all the goo out from inside, but once you do, you can keep your decorated eggs year after year!!

Blowing out the eggs is the first step. I’m sure you can buy some kind of fancy tool for this, but I just use supplies I have around the house. I used my craft poker tool this time, which worked nicely, and have also used an embroidery needle (with thimble to help push it into the egg). Make a small hole in each end of the egg – the larger the hole, the easier it is to blow out the insides, but also the more visible. Then, use a flexible straw – I’ve been using the plastic straws from my kids’ cups – suction one end of the straw over a hole – then blow into the straw and the egg insides will blow out the other side. It’s a slow process – I did my eggs over a few hours time while binge-watching Hart of Dixie, so that was fun. Run a little warm water through the empty egg and blow it out to get the insides clean. Then, set your eggs in a crate to dry out overnight.

This year, I used white and brown and green eggs from my hens. I did most of these monochromatic eggs with white eggs (actually, I had to BUY eggs because I only have 1 hen that lays white eggs). After dying a few dozen, I wanted to see how some of the colored eggs would fare and they just added a great level of further variety to the pink and blue hues. If you have access to brown eggs, give it a try – but, if you don’t, you can still make gorgeous monochromatic Easter eggs!

PAAS dye kits come with quite a variety of dye tabs. I used yellow, green, blue, red, pink, and orange to make a set of blue hues and a set of pink hues. There are also kits with different shades of blue to try. Follow the package instructions to dissolve the dye tabs and prepare your egg dye.

Since the blown-out eggs are empty, they float rather than sink down in the cup of egg dye. This makes dying the eggs more of a hands-on process – you will push and hold the egg down under the surface of the dye. For the lightest shades of color, quickly dip and roll the egg in the dye and immediately remove it. I like to set the drying eggs on the paper egg carton, which absorbs the moisture so that it doesn’t pool and unevenly color just some parts of the egg. For darker shades, hold or bob the egg under the dye for longer periods of time. Combine similar colors – like pink and orange, or red and pink – to get a variety of hues. In addition, using differently colored eggs (brown eggs) from the start will give you a whole additional set of hues to mix in!

My very darkest eggs here were done with dark brown eggs in red dye (and dark brown eggs in blue and green dye for the other set).

Display your monochromatic eggs in glass apothecary jars or set out in bowls! Aren’t they beautiful?

I’m excited to try some of the other kits that PAAS has available – I’m thinking these monochromatic eggs would look even more amazing with some foiling – what do you think?

The PAAS Ultimate Egg-Off is now LIVE!! It’s your chance to win $1000 this Easter!

You can learn more by clicking here: The Ultimate Egg-Off Contest.

Here are more fun Easter ideas:

Glitter Easter Eggs

Easter Party Printables

Lemon Crepe Cake

April 18, 2014 by girlinspired 3 Comments

I’ve been curious about these crepe cakes for a while and finally made one for my mom’s birthday a few weeks ago. The results were hopeful, though wobbly, but after another attempt, I think I’ve found my new favorite dessert!! Crepe upon crepe stacked with pastry cream and lemon filling, chilled into a solid tower, and garnished with lemon slices and powdered sugar – perfection. What more could you want in a dessert? This would be delicious for Easter brunch, a bridal shower, or Mother’s Day. You can serve this beautiful “cake” alongside gooey sweet lemon rolls for more lemon goodness.

This crepe cake requires approximately thirty 8-inch crepes (2-3 batches), 1 batch of lemon pie filling, and 1 recipe of pastry cream. All of the ingredients need to be mostly cool before assembling so that things don’t turn into a big runny, squishy mess. The crepe cake will be really wobbly when it is assembled, but after chilling in the refrigerator for an hour or two, it is actually quite solid and easy to slice.

You can find my crepe recipe and instructions here. I made three batches, but also fed my three hungry girls breakfast with a good portion of the batter. You can probably squeak out 30 crepes from 2 batches if necessary. You can find my pastry cream recipe here. It needs to be made in advance so that it can cool. The lemon filling also needs to cool, though it gets quite thick – I thinned mine by whisking in a bit of water, which worked great and didn’t compromise the flavor. When you have all the parts ready, place your first crepe flat on a cake stand. Spoon some lemon filling in the center of the crepe and spread gently toward the edges. Place a second crepe directly on top of the first. Spoon pastry cream onto the second crepe and spread evenly in a thin layer. Layer a third crepe, topped with lemon filling, and so on, rotating between the two fillings until the crepe cake is to your desired height. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour or overnight. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and top with lemon slices just before serving.

Lemon Crepe Cake - a tower of crepes layered with pastry cream and lemon filling

Lemon Crepe Cake - Lemon Filling

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Servings:

Calories: 74kcal

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 cups water
3 egg yolks slightly beaten
1/4 cup lemon juice
grated peel of one lemon
1 Tablespoon butter
1 recipe sweet crepes

Instructions

In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch and water until smooth.
Stir in egg yolks.
Bring to a boil over medium heat.
Continue boiling for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat.
Stir in lemon juice, grated peel, and butter.

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Nutrition

I hope your family enjoys this Lemon Crepe Cake as much as my family did!!