mo's easter busket

mos_easter_busket

oops...sorry i haven't blogged up the egg-formation for you yet! i am tryin to scan in the best of the best of the thousands i have painted so everyone might find at least one they wanna copy. so while i'm at that i thought i'd show you a cute lil doo dad'n idea for mo's egg-cellent doo dad easter busket. and i'm a bit later gettin the egg-structions up for you cause i tried to change the background for the moland and turned the whole dern thing black. i have nothin against black except when it is just black and nothin else can be seen.

anyway...this picture here is of what i call a busket...sort of a combo of a basket and a bucket you see. i've been makin em since i was about mini's age and decided to make a big batch of em for mini's third annual egg hunt...you wouldn't believe the amount of kids who show up for an egg hunt with nothin to put their hunted eggs in. i thought i'd get a batch of buskets made and then i could drag em out for the no-basket kids every year....i never considered that those who borrowed the buskets would just go on and carry em home! then, they'd show up again the next year without anything and expected me to provide them with a brand new busket. as you can guess, i started havin to make more buskets every year....so unless you wanna do the same thing, make some up for your family and be sure to tell everyone else to bring their own!

i'm sure just by takin a peek you can figure out how to make one. just go to the hardware store and buy some paint buckets. if they don't have em in white, just travel a lil further down the aisle and grab some white matte spray paint and paint yours white yourself. once it is dry, you can draw the face on with a sharpie...you might wanna do it in pencil first to get it the way you want. i will try to make a pattern of this one's face and have jo email it to you if you think you need it. just pop her an email to moscousinjo@mac.com. you can use some graphite paper to transfer it on.

after you use the sharpie to draw the face, paint the nose area in pink acrylic pain and dab in some color for the eye. for the cheeks i just used a sponge dipped in the pink paint and the mooshed it around with my thumb. for the girls i used a hot glue gun to add a ribbon necklace with a lil gold heart and for the boys a lil bow tie but they don't need either. if you want you could even cut out felt or fabric to make the face - there are no rules here for makin your busket...except maybe that it needs the handle!

to make the ears i ripped up some old white sheets in strips about 12 inches long and 6 inches wide. then i snipped both ends off old wire clothes hangers - the parts the shoulder hang on - and sort of bent the wires in the shape i wanted the ears to go. you can use any ol wire or even pipe cleaners - just nothin so thin it will poke thru the fabric and hurt lil fingers. drape the sheetin over the shape and either sew the two sides together or if i was really short on time, i just hot glued em together. i then sponged a bit more pink paint in the middle of em and hot glued em to the inside of the busket. if you're gonna add some doo dads to the outside like flowers and ribbon, hot glue the ears to the front as they'll stay on better bein as your child is gonna be puttin his hand in and out. and be sure to cover all the wire well.

on this one i hot glued bunches of my crepe paper flowers and then wrapped a wide piece of ribbon around and hot glued it in the front...then stuck on a big ol ribbon in the front. you can use any kind of artificial flower and i have even used moss and that krinkled paper. anything you decide to have flop over the bow will be fine.

now, i have said many times on this blog that i am the worst at writin out instructions...it's why until now i have hesitated sharin any of my craftier projects. but i figure what i leave out you can always ask me to tell you in the comment area or via email.

it's a real easy lil somethin you can create that will make lots of hunters really happy...and once you've crafted up one, you'll be thinkin of all sorts of other things to make...like one painted orange and with a jack-o-lantern face for trick-o-treatin...or line a busket with plastic, cram in some of that green floral foam and jam it full of fresh flowers for a centerpiece! i also have some lil soup cans made to look like a baby bunny and a sweet lil chick...i'll try to blog those up next...and then finally the bisque eggs and THEN..the cheap ol plastic ones i made so pretty no one could believe they were plastic!

queenie recently sent jo and me a batch of pictures of the us when we were lil and took egg huntin quite seriously....so along the way i may just have to blog up some of those and tell you about our egg-citin egg-ventures growin up. one year jo and i were so dead set on beatin queenie - who won the hunts every year - that we had practice hunts about once a week. queenie still won all the prizes anyway. i've invited her year after year to attend our annual egg hunt but she's always too busy flittin around on her knowledge quests to come. i think she's just afraid she'll lose her crown to me and jo - and nothin scares her like the thought of losin her crown!

signin off for now...i do so hope i can fall back into the bloggin...feelin the need to give you some egg-formation is just the thing that could get me goin again after my long hiatus! and please - if you make any buskets send me some shots of em and i'll put em here on the blog for all to see!