Cathy Riva Summer Tips on Tyra Banks Show

Easter Egg Decorating Ideas

part 2

7. Sponge Painted Eggs
Cut a sponge into small pieces. Pour some acrylic paint into a shallow dish or onto wax paper.
Clip the sponge pieces onto clothes pins, one for each color of paint. Dip the sponge into the paint and dab the egg with it. Start with your darker colors first for the best effect.Put the egg in an egg cup to dry.
Do NOT eat eggs that have been painted!

8. Waxing Easter Eggs
Drip wax from a lit taper candle onto the egg.After the wax is set, drop the egg into food coloring dye.
Remove from dye and pat dry. You can scrape the wax off and dip into another dye, or leave the wax on if you wish.

9. Painted Eggs
Use undiluted food coloring and a cotton swab to paint on hard boiled eggs. Let the eggs sit in egg cups until dry. You can also use acrylic paints in place of food coloring.
Do NOT eat eggs that have been painted!

10. Face Eggs
Use craft supplies such as yarn, ribbon and fabric scraps to create the members of your family. Attach with craft glue. Add facial features using permanent markers for the mouth, nose and eyes. Then cut a paper towel tube into different heights for Mom, Dad, sister etc. Decorate the tube with construction paper for clothing. Place the painted egg onto the holder. You can also add the individual's name to the tube. These make an entertaining name card for the Easter table.

11. Easter Bunny Eggs
Use food coloring dye or natural dyes to dye eggs in solid colors. Dry with paper towel. For each bunny egg, cut two oval shaped ears from colored paper. Glue the ears to the top of the egg. Add plastic "google" eyes. Use markers to add a small triangle for a nose and some whiskers. Glue on a cotton ball for a tail.

source : www.amazingmoms.com

Easter Egg Decorating Ideas

part 1
Preparing your Easter eggs for dyeing...
Before decorating your eggs, you need to hard-boil them.
Place the eggs in a large saucepan. Add cold water; enough to
completely cover the eggs. Place on medium-high heat and bring
water to a gentle boil. Reduce heat and simmer eggs for 9 minutes.
Remove from heat and fill with cold water. The eggs must be completely cool and dry, to decorate successfully.

A Dozen ways to decorate your Easter Eggs

1. Make your own food color dye.
Combine 1/2 to 1 Tablespoon of food coloring with 2 tsp. vinegar in a
cup that is deep enough for the eggs. Add water to about the half way point. Gently place the eggs into the cups. I use a soup spoon to place my eggs in the cups, to avoid cracking. The longer they are left in the dye, the darker the color shade. Experiment with different combinations of colors When you remove the egg from the dye, pat dry with a paper towel and place in a holder.

2. Crayon Resist Easter Eggs
Color on the Easter eggs before placing in the dye.
Simple Dots, lines shapes swirls...The wax will resist the dye and your picture will show through. If you are dying Easter eggs with little ones and do not want to use dye...The children can simply color the eggs with crayons and leave it at that.

3. Rubber Band Designs
Wrap elastic bands around hard cooked eggs, then drop them in food-coloring dye. Remove eggs, pat dry with paper towel and remove rubber bands. The parts of the egg covered with rubber bands will not be colored. Once the rubber bands are removed, you can drop the egg into a different color dye.

4. Marbled Eggs
In a mug or jar large enough to contain one egg, place 1 Tablespoon of oil, 1 Tablespoon of vinegar and 1 Tablespoon of food coloring. Add enough water to cover egg, stir quickly with a spoon and drop in hard boiled egg. Pull egg out quickly and pat dry with paper towel.

5. Collage Easter Eggs
Adorn your eggs with miscellaneous craft supplies; using white or craft glue to attach the materials. Items to try: sequins, buttons, glitter, or beads. stickers or even color with markers. Get wild!

6. Natural Easter Egg Dye
Try using natural dyes. Combine the dye source with 1/2 Tablespoon of vinegar with some cold water in a saucepan. Add raw eggs (make sure there's enough water to cover the eggs) and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 to 15 minutes. The longer you simmer, the darker the color will be, but simmer at least 8 minutes so that the eggs cook thoroughly.
Another Natural Method...
This will create a beautiful marbled effect. Wrap the uncooked eggs in onion skins both white an purple, spinach, or fresh saffron. Use white string to secure the wrap and then place the eggs in the foot of an old nylon stocking and tie a knot. Then gently boil the whole shebang, using the cooking time above...don't forget the vinegar. Leave the eggs in the wrap for awhile. When you unwrap them they will all look different.

source : http://www.amazingmoms.com

Easter Celebration

Easter is a grand festival of Christians and is celebrated to honor the resurrection of Lord Jesus, the son of mother Mary. It is a festivity of happiness and joy, as it was in the Easter springtime when people had witnessed Jesus' return to life. Thus, it becomes all the more obvious to have a bumper Easter celebration. It is interesting to learn as to how is Easter celebrated all over. Read further to gather information about celebrating Easter festival…

Here are some ideas regarding Easter celebration: -

* To commemorate this special festival Easter, candles are lit.
* In the morning time, men and women dressed up in their special Easter outfits go to the church and offer prayers.
* Houses are decorated with beautiful lilies.
* Easter bunnies make a place for themselves in splendid Easter baskets.
* Special dishes are prepared in the honor of Lord Jesus. Easter lamb occupies a commanding position on the dining table.
* At certain places, carnivals take place, where parades form the major attraction. In these parades, people wearing special costumes can be spotted. Mardi Gras parade held in North America is famous.
* As a part of Easter customs, Easter egg painting competitions are held. Beautifully ornamented Easter eggs are stocked in the gift galleries. Also Easter eggs sail smoothly in the yummy Easter menu. Easter egg hunt is the favorite kids' fun time activity.
* There is a trend of having bonfire arrangement on the Easter eve in Europe.
* As a part of special Easter Sunday feast, people eat hot cross buns and kids enjoy their jellybeans.

source : www.indobase.com

How to Observe Lent

The old Teutonic word "lent" meant simply the spring season. Since Anglo-Saxon times, though, it's been used to denote the 40-day period of fasting and purification leading up to Easter. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Easter Sunday.

Step1
Decorate your church and/or home in purple, symbolizing both suffering and death, but also royalty and thus hope for the resurrection.
Step2
Spend the Lent season in prayer, reflection and repentance. Lent is a time for soul-searching, facing great challenges and overcoming mistakes.
Step3
Follow the tradition of Lent by fasting, done in honor of Christ's own 40-day fast in the desert. You can do this in whatever way seems appropriate to you - its intensity has varied from total abstinence to refraining from eating meat. Note that some churches focus less on fasting and encourage charitable deeds. For example, visit elderly people, baby-sit for young mothers or visit prisoners.
Step4
Give up something you love for the 40-day period, symbolizing the Lenten season's return to simplicity and purity. It doesn't matter what you give up - cigarettes, chocolate, television, surfing the Internet - as long as the meaning of its absence holds significant value to you.
Step5
Banish the gloom of winter and make room for Easter and the new life of spring. While this season might be tinged with solemnity, it should also be a time of looking forward to renewal and triumph.

http://www.ehow.com/how_12835_observe-lent.html

Tips and Ideas for the Lent

Lent Points to Easter
It seems almost easy to "do" the season of Lent in our homes. We give up some things we like and resolve to do some things we usually avoid; we may avoid meat on Fridays in Lent. Without some thought, though, it's easy to let Lent stop there. To create an atmosphere that shows to our children the meaning of Lent, we need to keep in mind that Lent always points to Easter.
Lent isn't an end in itself; its purpose is to make way in our hearts and our lives for the great events of Holy Week and Easter, and the full 50 days of Easter celebration afterward. This is a great story arc that begins with Ash Wednesday, peaks with the events upon which our faith rests - Jesus's passion, death, and resurrection - and eventually comes to rest at Pentecost.
In addition to the typical Lenten activities, which young children will probably not understand fully, enrich your family life during Lent in other ways. Choose activities, stories, and play that highlight things coming to life, or the spareness and simplicity of the season, or themes of Easter to come.
A twig's green wood underneath a scraped-away outer layer. Budding and blooming plants. A simplified home decor. Quiet evenings enjoying each others' company without the television. Delicious, simple meals of good soup and bread.
Finally, begin to look ahead, in your storytelling, playtime, books, and more, to the great stories of Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and Easter.

Creativity
Set out art supplies. Tell a shepherd-oriented Bible story very simply or read the Good Shepherd story (Psalm 23 & John 10) from a book such as Tomie dePaola's Parables of Jesus.
Suggest that your children use any of the art materials to make something about the story on the paper or with clay or whatever the supplies are. Enjoy what they create.
Outdoors
Cut a twig or two from a spring-blooming shrub that is starting to show buds. Put it in a vase of water indoors so it will bloom early.
Play
Create or adapt a play set of a shepherd, some sheep, and a sheepfold. Tell, and then act out the Good Shepherd parable (Psalm 23 & John 10). Leave the play set available for this. After a few weeks, add a sheep that is the lost sheep of the parable.

source : www.faith-at-home.com

How to Observe Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday is the sixth and final Sunday of Lent and the beginning of Holy Week, the most solemn period in the Christian church.

Step1
Go to church. Even if you're not religious in a formal way, the Palm Sunday service ' particularly the Catholic Mass ' is worth seeing.
Step2
Listen as the celebrant of the Mass says five prayers asking God to bless the palm branches; he then sprinkles them with holy water, infuses them with incense and, after another prayer, distributes them to the congregation as the choir sings "Pueri Hebraeorum." Clergy and congregation form a procession and, carrying the blessed palms, march out of the church.
Step3
While everyone else waits outside, two or four chanters enter the church and sing the hymn "Gloria, laus," which those outside repeat.
Step4
At the end of the hymn, the subdeacon knocks at the church door with the staff of the cross, the door is opened and everyone enters singing "Ingrediente Domino."
Step5
Stay for the subsequent Mass, the highlight being the singing of the Passion according to St. Matthew, during which everyone holds their palm branches.
Step6
Keep in mind that, traditionally, the faithful took their blessed palms home and used them as protective charms in the house, barn or fields.

source : http://www.ehow.com/how_12836_observe-palm-sunday.html