Twinkles and Twigs: Happy (Homemade) Easter!

Every year, about a month before every holiday, I make the same ambitious declaration: "this year, I'm making all of the gifts." We're kind of laid back about holidays, and gift giving, so it never seems like that big of a task. So I put it off until the holiday is four days away, realize there isn't any time to make most of the things I'd planned to make, and place a bunch of last minute Amazon Prime orders.

But not this Easter. Not because I planned better, but because Easter falls on a Sunday. And since it was Thursday when I realized that Easter was this Sunday, there wasn't time to order anything. So I was stuck.

Fortunately, I wasn't a complete slacker this year. I'd already made this little Popover Sundress for Maxine,

and another Lazy Days skirt for Lissie.

I was planning to make fabric buckets for the girls to serve as Easter baskets, but I've never made one before, and they looked too complicated to tackle for the first time with a looming deadline. Instead, I used this tutorial to make a little Sleeping Beauty drawstring bag for each (little) girl.

Ariana, the cat lover, got a little Owl and Pussycat bag.

We filled each bag with a few goodies. I didn't mean to do so many little dolls, but found the gnomes while Ariana and I were making the butterflies. The little purses came from different grandmothers. Do all grandmothers collect lots of tiny purses, or is it just the ones in our family?

Pastels for Lissie, and lots of red for Maxine. It's her favorite color. Had you noticed? Lissie's purse was bigger, so Max got the baby gnome. She loves it, as predicted. Let's not discuss the "branch with berries" I embroidered on the belly of one of Max's gnomes. At least we know why that one was packed away with the craft supplies!

There was a little surprise for everybody at the top of the stairs too. Ariana stayed up late and made a bunny for each girl, and left them there with a little note. Lissie noticed right away that the handwriting was not mine or Brad's, and decided it must really be from the Easter bunny. I wondered if she would also notice Ariana's trademark "X" eyes, but she didn't seem to make the connection. She was thrilled to finally know whether the Easter bunny was a boy or a girl. Who knew it was such a burning question?

After our low-key Easter morning, we headed out to the country to visit some friends.

The bow and arrows were not an Easter gift, but Lissie just got them this weekend. She recently became interested in archery while reading Robin Hood, and my father happened to have a youth set that he bought years and years ago for Ariana. Ariana never used it, but Lissie has been having a lot of fun with it!