Easter trimmings

Egg Dying: works so much better with a dye kit. And white eggs. I fully admit this after romantisicing the idea of using natural dyes. It sounded great in theory; tumeric for yellow, red cabbage for blue-violet, and beets for a reddish pink. I could make purple green and orange by using two dyes for one egg.
The only problem? No beets or red cabbage to be found here at this time of year. At least, not in the Petit Marché in the past week. So I made do with what I had. I suppose if I was really motivated I could have found some juices or powdered drink mixes to dye the eggs, but I ended up picking half a dozen of the lightest brown eggs I had, and hard boiling them with a spice we use in making a cari. Oh, and I had wanted to make stripes by tying string on, but realised that rubber bands are reccommended for good reason. That idea got ditched rather quickly.


Not a huge difference in their original color, but still a pretty, rich yellow hue.
Which I then decided was too boring on its own, so I busted out the sharpie markers.
Luc was fascinated by them, and for the first time, he was able to play with an egg without my fear of his breaking it and getting it everywhere.
I showed him how we peel off the shell,
and then he went to town.
Next up on decorations, I got a heart shaped oasis (those green foamy things used in flower arrangements) and cut some pink baby roses to fit it. Then I gathered some of the leaves and pinned them to the sides of the oasis. I really liked how it turned out!

Uncle Romain arrived on Saturday!

Easter morning with the beautiful sun coming up. Although it looked pretty, I think I'll leave the chocolate in the fridge next time. Mmmm, irish bread in the background....
In the previous week, I made seven of those little bunny finger puppets you see sitting atop the golden chocolate eggs. I found the tutorial at the Purl Bee, which is a fun, creative, and crafty little site that you should check out if you're into that kind of stuff.
And lastly, the cake. Oh, the cake. It was fun to make AND delicious. WIN! It's a 2 layer carrot cake with cream cheese frosting (a bit too runny, but I'll get the proportions right next time). I used gummi worms that I cut to look like carrots, and melted dark chocolate over some shredded coconut and formed a little birds nest with jelly bean eggs. And you know what's amazing? We actually got this cake a quarter of the way around the island, down a rocky path, to a secluded surf beach without messing it up at all. (An easter miracle?)
Luc is screaming in this picture. Translation: let's eat this cake NOW!


Happy Easter everyone!