Home Ever After » Easter

Happy Easter Craft Cards

Danelle Ice — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 03:39:00 +0000

My 10 year old daughter came up with some truly unique Easter cards this year. I told her she could use any materials in the Creation Station to make her projects, and she got really creative! Here are two of her masterpiece Easter cards:

Get more Wordless Wednesday here and at 5 Minutes 4 Mom.

Coloring Easter Eggs 2010

Danelle Ice - Home Ever After — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 01:21:00 +0000

This was Truett’s first year of being old enough to dye Easter eggs, so we went for it (more at my husband’s encouragement than mine). Hannah still believes in the Easter bunny, surprisingly enough, so they both had tons of fun. Here are the photos of the Ice-Simmons family coloring Easter eggs:

Here Michael, Hannah and Truett hold up the entire two dozen eggs:

Of course, Seven was already in bed when we each held up our “pride and joy” eggs (aka our favorite ones!).

Get more Wordless Wednesday here and at 5 Minutes 4 Mom.

Easter Menu: 41 Mouth Watering Easter Brunch Recipes

Danelle Ice — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 19:05:00 +0000

It’s Time for Easter Brunch Recipes!

Just in time for Easter, we’ve prepared a complete selection of 41 printable Easter recipes to choose from to create your full Easter menu. Our Easter recipes include appetizers, main courses, drinks, salads, quiches, and desserts perfect for Easter brunch. This collection includes favorite Easter recipes from Martha Stewart, Pillsbury, and Betty Crocker.

Enjoy putting together your Easter brunch from this fabulous collection, and feel free to leave links to your favorite Easter brunch recipes in the comments. Happy Easter from the team at Home Ever After!

Appetizers

Main Courses by Martha Stewart

Drinks

Sunrise Mimosas recipe (alcoholic)
Mimosas recipe (alcoholic)
Raspberry Punch recipe -crowd size (non-alcoholic)
Banana-Orange Sunrise recipe (non-alcoholic)
Lemon Tea Slush recipe (alcoholic)
Cranberry Limeade recipe (non-alcoholic)

Salads

Quiches

Bacon Quiche Biscuit Cups recipe
Spinach and Gruyere Quiches recipe from Martha Stewart
Breakfast Quiches to Go recipe
Broccoli, Potato and Bacon Quiche recipe

Desserts

If you liked this list of printable Easter brunch recipes, please link to it on your blog or tweet about it at twitter. Thank you!

This Easter menu was originally published on Home Ever After on April 11, 2009. Quiche photo by yoppy . Ham photo by Allerina & Glen MacLarty.

Free Pictures with the Easter Bunny at Walmart April 2010

Danelle Ice — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 03:00:00 +0000

Free Pictures with the Easter Bunny at Walmart April 2010

We’ve been getting a lot of questions from readers about free photos with the Easter bunny at Walmart this year. I spoke with Walmart staff today to confirm that they are offering free photos with the Easter bunny and Easter egg hunts again this year.

In my local store, there will be an

Easter egg hunt and free pictures with the Easter bunny on Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 in Walmart at 8am.

Those times are good for the Walmart in Fairbanks, Alaska. This doesn’t mean all Walmart stores will be the same though. Call your local Walmart store to find out if they are also having free pictures with the Easter bunny and/or an Easter egg hunt, and ask them what day and time, just in case not all stores are participating at the same time.

Please post your local Walmart Easter bunny photos days/times in the comments below when you find out the information. Thank you!

About the Free Photos: The photo above is an actual photo of my son, Truett Ice-Simmons, with the Easter Bunny at Walmart last year. They had a costumed character along with a cute setup (backdrop, stuffed animals of bunnies and chickens, and decorative Easter baskets) for the photos.

You could bring your own camera and take photos or they had staff taking digital photos for free which you could pick up in the photo department about 30 minutes later.

Pink Peeps Easter Bunny photo by Lin Pernille ♥ Photography.

(OLD) Easter: April 5th, 2009

A sign appeared in my local Walmart in Fairbanks, Alaska a few days ago about free pictures with the Easter bunny.

In my local store, it looks like there will be an Easter egg hunt and free pictures with the Easter bunny on Sunday, April 5th, 2009 from 10am to 2pm.

In the meantime, please call your local Walmart store to find out if they are also having free pictures with the Easter bunny and/or an Easter egg hunt, and ask them what day and time, just in case not all stores are participating at the same time.

Keep Your Frugal Easter Fun and Budget Friendly!

Danelle Ice — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:00:00 +0000

Easter brunch, Easter egg hunts and fun Easter baskets don’t have to cost a fortune. Frugal Easter celebrations are an art, and you’ll get better and better at keeping the costs down without losing the magic each year. We’ve written some other Easter articles you might find helpful too:

Frugal Easter Baskets
Easter Menu: 41 Mouth Watering Easter Brunch Recipes
Free Pictures with the Easter Bunny at Walmart

(As you can see from the pictures of me holding the egg carton and of my daughter, London Ice, Easter egg hunts here in Alaska are a little different!)

How to Keep Easter Frugally Fun:

Tip #1: Combine Your Celebrations

Our very large extended family all gets together at one house, making for a frugal Easter for all of us. Whoever is hosting the festivities sends out an email sign-up sheet for food ahead of time, and in a potluck sort of way, an entire meal materializes for everyone attending. The kids get to play together, the adults get to socialize, and nobody spends a lot to put on a full-fledged, plated meal at their house. Is your family out-of-state? Try getting together with a few families from church or your neighborhood.

Tip #2: Keep Your Frugal Easter Celebration Early in the Day

Going to church in the morning? Try to have your celebration soon after. The earlier in the day your event, the less expensive your food options become. Few people expect a sit-down meal in the afternoon, and simple, inexpensive foods such as deviled eggs and finger sandwiches can make an appealing and frugal lunch spread. These foods will probably score higher with the kids anyway!

Tip #3: Reuse and Reduce (Your Spending)

Every year I grudgingly pull every bit of plastic Easter grass out of the baskets once all the goodies have been plucked from within. It gets packed in plastic bags (grocery or zipper bags work great) and put into the storage box labeled “Easter.” Don’t forget to throw in your Easter décor, little plastic bobbles from abandoned Easter goody bags, stickers, coloring books, and of course the empty wicker baskets. Just as easy as that, your materials for making Easter baskets for next year are ready – just add candy, eggs and presents from the Easter Bunny! The extra work now to pack it away neatly makes it easy to make frugal Easter baskets next year.

Tip #4: Plan Ahead

Plan a year ahead, to be exact! The day after (or in some stores, Easter day) clearance sales are the way to go for getting your Easter supplies. Check your mass retailers, grocery stores, craft stores and party supply stores for terrific clearance events on Easter items. Keep your head, though. Greatly reduced prices can make us overspend; look specifically for the items you know you will use, such as serving dishes, Easter basket supplies, etc. Make sure you leave a little in the budget to update your Easter décor as well.

With a little advance planning and a great system for managing your stored holiday items, everyone can keep their Easter frugally fun!

Happy Easter!

Danelle Ice - Home Ever After — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 17:12:00 +0000

See everyone tomorrow!

thanks to Plebius for the cool glitter text and MorgueFile for the photo

Frugal Easter Baskets

Danelle Ice - Home Ever After — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:08:00 +0000

Here is how I made 2 cute Easter baskets for my kids while keeping the costs down (hurray Walmart for the supplies; some of you who have Walgreens and CVS may do better finding your deals there).

The supplies:
· Easter grass x 2 bags = $2.00
· Plastic Easter eggs 48pk =$1.68
· 2 wicker baskets = $0.00
· Jelly beans (in eggs)= $ .50
· Chocolate bunny = $ .94
· Easter jump rope = $1.00
· Mini pastel bibles x2 = $4.94
· Pennies (inside eggs) = $ .14
· Bunny = $0.00

Total cost of supplies for 2 Easter baskets = $11.20. That means each basket cost just $5.60!

I could have made the baskets for less if I was reusing plastic eggs and Easter grass from last year. Next year, I will have that luxury, knocking an extra $3.68 off the cost! The other big expense for the supplies was the cost of the mini pastel bibles. Hey, they were cute, came in pink and blue, and it’s Truett’s first Easter! And you can’t get something for one child without getting it for both!

The baskets were purchased several years ago and have been reused. The bunny is from Truett’s room (he’s 6 months old, he won’t know the difference!)

Every year we go easy on the candy by filling some of the eggs with pennies. I was delighted to see that other people do this too (see Deborah’s post at Simply Thrifty)!

The baskets took 5 minutes to put together, just fill the eggs with pennies and jelly beans, put everything in the basket and you’re done! (Truett’s eggs are empty; he’s only a baby!) No spending $10-$30 per premade Easter basket at the store (yes, I saw them for that much while I was buying the supplies). They’re fast, easy and sure to please!

When Easter is over, be sure to pack up the supplies (grass, empty wicker baskets, plastic eggs) into a box and clearly label it “Easter”. Reusing these for next year will cut your costs further by keeping you from buying them again and will keep them out of the landfills (which will be littered with Easter grass the day after Easter!).

Free Pictures with the Easter Bunny at Walmart

Danelle Ice — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 11:32:00 +0000

Head to Walmart this weekend to get your free photos of your kids with the Easter Bunny. They print the photos while you shop and have them waiting for you on the counter of the photo department. If you want more than one copy, you can take it right over to their photo printing kiosk and whip out the extras, and it won’t cost any more than your spare change!

Friday, 3/21/08, 10am – 2pm
Saturday, 3/22/08, 10am – 2pm

Here is our son, Truett, from last Saturday (it’s his first Easter!).