Easter Egg Hunt 2015

I hope you all had a fantastic, relaxing Easter. Our girls had a ball making their own hats for the Easter Hat Parade at school on Thursday, and then of course hunting for eggs on Sunday. I had a great, relaxing break spending time cuddled up on the couch with my loved ones in our new pyjamas (our Easter tradition) from eeni meeni miini moh and Four In The Bed, cleaning up around the house, trying out new bike paths, catching up with friends, making banana split sundaes, enjoying a special Passover Seder meal and trekking to the Royal Easter Show. Here are a few shots from our Easter Egg hunt - so much excitement!

Australian Easter Gift Guide for Kids 2015

It's only a couple of days until the bunny arrives, but these Easter-inspired kids' gifts will last all year long. We've got the eeni meeni miini moh pyjamas wrapped for the girls that I'm sure they will pop on straight away for the Easter Egg hunt. And here are 22 more bunny-licious gift ideas for kids by Australian designers that I've pulled together just for you...

Make: Kids' Easter Bonnet for the Easter Hat Parade

Easter is just a few days away and for many kids, the excitement is at fever pitch for the Easter Hat Parade. You kids might be making their own bonnets, or you might have been roped in. Having a heart attack about it? I made four in one night, and you can too. Here's the tutorial that I put together a few years ago. Click here. Super-easy!

Images and tutorial by: Steph Bond-Hutkin | Bondville

Happy Easter

Hope you've all had a very happy Easter! My friend Tanya made this lovely Easter cake that I thought you'd love.

Today is also the last day of the giveaway to win $75 to spend on Etsy - head here for more details. Don't forget that KatyJane Designs is also clearing out all their stock of gorgeous stationery right here. Also, gorgeous Melbourne kids' online retailers Habitots have a pop-up shop in Albert Park for a limited time with lots of goodies and kids' workshops too. All the details right here.

We've just a few days at Avoca Beach with friends and now off to the Sunshine Coast to enjoy this glorious weather with our family. Stay tuned as I'll be sharing lots of great local products for Mum, Kids and Home. If you're in NSW, hope you're having a great school holidays and hooray for a short week. Enjoy!
Steph

Image: Steph Bond-Hutkin | Bondville

Getting ready for the Easter Bunny visit

I put together a guide to getting ready for Easter Sunday over on eBay's Mum's Business website, and included a couple of snapshots of my girls hunting for eggs and goodies from the Easter Bunny last year. Thought you would like them!

Make: cute DIY bunny craft kit from Artstitch

More cute Easter craft for you - this little bunny craft kit from Artstitch comes with everything you need to sew your own rabbit in the prettiest cotton Liberty outfit. Too sweet! Head to the Artstitch online store to check out the whole range. Make one for a little person, or buy as a gift for an older child. Suitable for beginner to intermediate sewers.

Image: Artstitch 

Make: Easter craft projects for kids

If you're looking for some fun craft activities to do with the kids this week before Easter, hop over to my friend Lisa Tilse's excellent blog the red thread for these two gorgeous craft tutorials:

Make bunny softies from socks:

and a sweet Easter bunny costume and egg hunt bag:

Do you recognise the littlest Miss Bondville?! She was such a good little model. I love this photo of us together.

There are also some great Easter printables over at TinyMe and some fun tutorials at Mum's Business including my articles on making Easter branch decorations, Easter hats and Easter cooking treats.

Have fun getting ready for Easter this week!

Images: the red thread

Loving: Tinyme bunny wall stickers

I hope that you're all having a lovely Easter. How about this glorious weather. So far we've been enjoying my sister visiting from the US, a magical Easter Hat Parade at school, delicious hot cross buns, a hike through the bush to Whale Rock, finding wild flannel flowers, baking whoopie pies, a BBQ with friends (still swimming in the pool!), a divine vegetarian meal at Yulli's in Surry Hills (those edamame and coconut moneybags - wow), and The Intouchables on the TV tonight.

I've had some serious internet connection challenges this last week (as in having no internet connection) but now that we're back up and running, I wanted to share with you this very Easter-y wall decal from Tinyme - the Mini Bunny Family. So sweet and a great price too. I'm thinking of this colourway for my little one's bedroom; I love the light blue and red combo.

You can find the Mini Bunny Family decals in the Tinyme online store. What are you up to this Easter? Which day does the Easter Bunny visit your house?

Image: Tinyme

I made four Easter hats in one night - you can too

Last week I made four Easter hats in one night using an old nappy box, a few sheets of card stock, bought shredded paper, one cheap chicken in a nest, and the contents of our craft box (ribbon, washi tape, paint, broken butterfly, broken flower clilp, feathers). You can too!

Pastel-inspired Aussie design for Easter

Easter is not far away and although that means cooler weather for us, I'm still loving a palette of pastels with a shot of neon (check out these cute new mint brogues I just picked up!).

When I came across this photo of Easter eggs and cottage garden flowers by Chika from She Who Eats, I was inspired to pull together a collection of Australian-designed goodies for Easter with a similar colour theme - pastel organic shapes with a touch of bright yellow and magenta. I would love to display gorgeous pastel eggs like these in an enamel bowl.

1. Bow cardigan by Joyess Designs (pre-order only)
2. Woodland rabbit bunting by MOZI
3. Leisl necklace by Emily Green
4. War pony art print by Urban Road
5. Rabbit gift tags and box by KatyJane Designs
6. Fraise pink and sorbet spot skegging by eeni meeni miini moh
7. 41 Orchard bird wall decal from Tots n Tales
8. Carnival baking cup by Paper Eskimo
9. Stacey girls' hair snaps by Wonder Dot
10. Magenta hello sign by Down To The Woods
11. The shopper by Harvest Textiles

I hope you enjoy these pretty pastel picks for Mum, Kids and Home. That Mozi woodland rabbit bunting is high on my wish list!

Top image: She Who Eats

Easy Easter goodies to bake with kids (and my first macarons)

If you are looking for some easy baking activities to do with the kidlets over Easter, I've put together an article for eBay's Mum's Business that might be just for you. The girls and I made all these goodies together - they are all simple and great to keep them busy over the long weekend.

There are some cute bunny cupcakes to make with things you might have around the house:

(take out the toothpicks before serving to the kids, of course).

Or some super-easy mini chick cupcakes:

And how about some Rocky Road for Dad:

Chocolate muesli bunny tails:

And my piece de resistance! My first macarons:

To make it super-easy to make with kids, I used the Donna Hay macaron packaged mix with a few adjustments:
1. add 2 drops of yellow and 1 drop of red food colouring to the egg mix to make peach-coloured macarons
2. swap out the dark chocolate for white chocolate to make light-coloured ganache to sandwich between your macaron shells

Have you tried making macarons yet?

Head over to Mum's Business to read the whole article. And have a super Easter and Passover weekend!

Images: Steph Bond-Hutkin

Mooo free Easter printables

Bondville sponsor Mooo has a collection of super-cute Easter printables, available for free on the Mooo.com website. Head over to print out three different designs of gift tags, bag labels, egg rings and cards. Easy!

Images: Mooo

Bunny tails

I've been busy in the kitchen this week making goodies with the girls for Easter. Well actually, it's for an article that I'm writing about activities with kids for Easter. The macarons, Easter cupcakes, rocky road and bunny tails are unfortunately being consumed as soon as they are made. So much for early Easter planning!

These cute bunny tails are adapted from a chocolate ball recipe by Sara Hingle from the excellent Frankie Afternoon Tea book that I adore. Simply mix 3 cups of muesli, half a cup of sugar and 1 cup of dessicated coconut in a bowl. The kids can definitely do this. Then heat 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, half a cup of milk and 125g of butter in a saucepan. Pour the wet mixture into the dry and let the kids go to town making sticky balls and rolling them in extra dessicated coconut.

Place your finished bunny tails on baking paper on a cookie sheet and pop into the fridge until they are set. Delicious! And not too naughty either.

Image: Steph Bond-Hutkin