Happy Eaters!
...Er. Happy Easter. I swear that's what I meant. ;-)
~adjusts psychological petticoats to hide Freudian slip~
Anyway, it was a very lovely Easter in Bluey-ville, and I hope you all had similarly wonderful Easter or Passover weekends. Or just, you know, a really nice weekend.
We were lucky enough to enjoy good weather, good humor, good treats, good spirits, good company... and good food, of course.
Oh, and I decorated the Easter Eggs. Glitter was involved. (Actually, to be specific, 4 different types of glitter.) Act surprised. *g* Pics and more details under the cut!
Easter itself was a genuinely beautiful Spring day here, as lovely as you could hope for: bright sunshine, cheerful blue sky, warm but not stifling. It set the tone for the day.
We started, as always, with the early Easter mass, followed by the exchanging of baskets and the family Easter breakfast. That last is usually my mother's doing, and Bluey Mom did a wonderful job this year, as always. (This is admittedly not easy when the rest of us are goofing around and my dad and brother are bursting out into a spontaneous performance of Rapper with a Baby, a la Rich Fulcher in Snuff Box. *g*)
My main contribution to the breakfast was in the form of decorating the Easter Eggs, which is of course exactly the sort of creative project I love. I originally had some very ambitious plans to do either David Bowie tribute eggs or Luxury Comedy characters, but I ran out of time to do those as well as I would have liked, so that'll have to wait until next year.
However, I still had plenty of fun doing these. The pictures don't quite do justice to their sparkle (by the time I'd finished, I had glitter in my hair, on my face, on my clothes, on the cats...), but this is still a pretty decent representation. I also found a tiny bit of inspiration from watching a documentary on the new Damien Hirst exhibition at the Tate. Although I still find the man himself quite slick and cold and self-justifying, and some of his work is undeniably both cruel and crude in its aggressive shock-value approach (but analyzing that is another post for another day), I was actually surprised to be charmed by the beautiful things he'd done with butterflies, and that sparked an idea for me.
The results:
The butterflies were done on high-gloss paper, cut out, and then applied to the eggs with a paintbrush and food-safe glue. The same technique was used for applying the glitter (hard to see here, but some of it was painted in patterns, for effect) and the flowers, which are actually sequins that glitter in their own right.
I was rather pleased with the effect. :D
A lot of the rest of the day was leisurely shared dinner prep (the menu: glazed ham, mini brioches, roasted fingerling potatoes with garlic, roasted asparagus with sesame, and creamy fruit salad, with Lemon Meringue Cake and raspberry ice cream for dessert), lazing about and joking around, watching movies (War Horse and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, so it was a very Benedict Cumberbatch holiday), nibbling on Easter candy, and having fun outside, as we took turns seeing how far we could launch one of my Easter presents, a stuffed cow that doubles as a slingshot and moos as she sails through the air.
Yes, you read that last bit correctly. I'm not sure I've ever been more delighted by an Easter gift. All I could think of, when I first got her, was Monty Python and "Fetchez la vache!" There is no occasion that is not improved by a mooing projectile cow, surely! ;-)
The rest of the day was basically digesting and winding down and cleaning up and putting away, which was again a shared effort. It is altogether a lower-stress approach than I've tended to have towards holiday entertaining than in the past, and I think I like the results. More enjoyment and less pressure can only be a good thing, right? (Yes, I DID learn a lesson from my St. Patrick's Day stress-induced breakdown. It's never to late to learn from your mistakes!)
In sum: kind of a perfect day.
I have a few more posts to compose, as soon as I can manage them. I have a ton of picspam to share, and there's also the little matter of writing up my experience at the Kasabian concert, which far exceeded even my wildest expectations for the night. It's been a bit over a week since then, and I still feel a bit like I'm only just now reassembling the bits of my blown mind. ;-)
In any case, I wish you all good Wednesdays (or Thursdays, depending on where you are), and I am sending lots of love and virtual hugs and smooches. Things seem to be rough in a lot of quarters and for a lot of good people just lately, and it feels like a fitting time to be spreading as much love and good sentiment as possible &hearts
~adjusts psychological petticoats to hide Freudian slip~
Anyway, it was a very lovely Easter in Bluey-ville, and I hope you all had similarly wonderful Easter or Passover weekends. Or just, you know, a really nice weekend.
We were lucky enough to enjoy good weather, good humor, good treats, good spirits, good company... and good food, of course.
Oh, and I decorated the Easter Eggs. Glitter was involved. (Actually, to be specific, 4 different types of glitter.) Act surprised. *g* Pics and more details under the cut!
Easter itself was a genuinely beautiful Spring day here, as lovely as you could hope for: bright sunshine, cheerful blue sky, warm but not stifling. It set the tone for the day.
We started, as always, with the early Easter mass, followed by the exchanging of baskets and the family Easter breakfast. That last is usually my mother's doing, and Bluey Mom did a wonderful job this year, as always. (This is admittedly not easy when the rest of us are goofing around and my dad and brother are bursting out into a spontaneous performance of Rapper with a Baby, a la Rich Fulcher in Snuff Box. *g*)
My main contribution to the breakfast was in the form of decorating the Easter Eggs, which is of course exactly the sort of creative project I love. I originally had some very ambitious plans to do either David Bowie tribute eggs or Luxury Comedy characters, but I ran out of time to do those as well as I would have liked, so that'll have to wait until next year.
However, I still had plenty of fun doing these. The pictures don't quite do justice to their sparkle (by the time I'd finished, I had glitter in my hair, on my face, on my clothes, on the cats...), but this is still a pretty decent representation. I also found a tiny bit of inspiration from watching a documentary on the new Damien Hirst exhibition at the Tate. Although I still find the man himself quite slick and cold and self-justifying, and some of his work is undeniably both cruel and crude in its aggressive shock-value approach (but analyzing that is another post for another day), I was actually surprised to be charmed by the beautiful things he'd done with butterflies, and that sparked an idea for me.
The results:
The butterflies were done on high-gloss paper, cut out, and then applied to the eggs with a paintbrush and food-safe glue. The same technique was used for applying the glitter (hard to see here, but some of it was painted in patterns, for effect) and the flowers, which are actually sequins that glitter in their own right.
I was rather pleased with the effect. :D
A lot of the rest of the day was leisurely shared dinner prep (the menu: glazed ham, mini brioches, roasted fingerling potatoes with garlic, roasted asparagus with sesame, and creamy fruit salad, with Lemon Meringue Cake and raspberry ice cream for dessert), lazing about and joking around, watching movies (War Horse and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, so it was a very Benedict Cumberbatch holiday), nibbling on Easter candy, and having fun outside, as we took turns seeing how far we could launch one of my Easter presents, a stuffed cow that doubles as a slingshot and moos as she sails through the air.
Yes, you read that last bit correctly. I'm not sure I've ever been more delighted by an Easter gift. All I could think of, when I first got her, was Monty Python and "Fetchez la vache!" There is no occasion that is not improved by a mooing projectile cow, surely! ;-)
The rest of the day was basically digesting and winding down and cleaning up and putting away, which was again a shared effort. It is altogether a lower-stress approach than I've tended to have towards holiday entertaining than in the past, and I think I like the results. More enjoyment and less pressure can only be a good thing, right? (Yes, I DID learn a lesson from my St. Patrick's Day stress-induced breakdown. It's never to late to learn from your mistakes!)
In sum: kind of a perfect day.
I have a few more posts to compose, as soon as I can manage them. I have a ton of picspam to share, and there's also the little matter of writing up my experience at the Kasabian concert, which far exceeded even my wildest expectations for the night. It's been a bit over a week since then, and I still feel a bit like I'm only just now reassembling the bits of my blown mind. ;-)
In any case, I wish you all good Wednesdays (or Thursdays, depending on where you are), and I am sending lots of love and virtual hugs and smooches. Things seem to be rough in a lot of quarters and for a lot of good people just lately, and it feels like a fitting time to be spreading as much love and good sentiment as possible &hearts