Easter Time

This year Easter was the most beautiful and delightful time. Autumn was well underway with eerie rainy weather and it was our Son's first Easter. 

In the past, my family would celebrate Easter with a variety of Finnish warm casseroles served at lunch with a dessert made mostly of rye flour, water, orange rind and molasses. It was called Mammia. It is an acquired taste and often served with cream and sugar, though I prefer it with just milk. I absolutely love this dessert! And is something that get's me pumped up for the family get together haha. Although I have no idea how to make it. 

The unfortunate part of our Easter get together's with extended and expanding families is the difficulty to produce these warm casseroles, and so the families have opted to have take-out food instead. Though not this year. At least not for me. I asked my Mum if we could just between the two of us share in making a casserole each and the beautiful meat gravy to share between our families - and we did just that! Plus still got to enjoy the Mammia with extended family the next day. All in all a pretty indulgent Easter this year.

I also felt accomplished as each year our church holds the annual Easter Conference meetings, you can check those out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjycstc9ASU 

This year, I was asked if I could help out with some of the baking, which is exactly what I had wanted to do anyway and they asked if I could make the Gluten Free cakes. Given one of my dearest friends is recently shifting to a Gluten Free diet I was delighted to make something more enjoyable for herself during the Easter holiday. I ended up making four cakes, so I won't share those recipes here right now.

Then Easter also included the decorative aspect. I don't decorate much at Easter time - nothing like Christmas celebrations. Last year, I extended on my ‘bunny’ small scene. Bunny is a different significance for me, as it was a nickname my Mum called me from when I was a bub. So I have a bit of a collection over the years of different cute bunnies that people have gifted me. It is a cute icon generally but I don’t think it needs to be specific to Easter – which is why I leave those decorations out all year round, or until I get tired of looking at them.

So this year, I decided to focus on the cross. I had a couple spare frames and so firstly I painted them. One which was just the frame I painted a bright mint green, no specific reason I just thought it looked like a nice fresh colour. The other I painted off-white. On the mint green one I used some thick wire ended ribbon with pearls on the edges. You’ll need a decent length of ribbon to achieve this first look. Ensure the ribbon is used from the halfway point out. So the halfway point should be over the middle of the frame, then wrap it around the longer length of the frame, bring it around just like tying a ribbon on a present, so that it wraps around the shorter edges and comes back around the front. Now tie a knot here. I just left it as a double knot, but you could do a bow if you like.

Now the second frame, as this one was more solid, I decided to use twine (big fan of twine!) and I just used it as a single thread thickness, wrapping it around the longer length first and fastening it off at the back with a double knot. Then going again around the shorter length, ensuring the result looks like a cross, and fastening it off at the back again. Spread the multiple woven threads out on the edges of the frame to give the cross some depth. Job done!

I left mine on the window sill so my neighbours could view the results.

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:18 NIV

For a holiday that lasts only 4 short days. This was a blessed occasion all the way around, sharing it with many others and taking in the blessings.