Easter Wrap-Up

After dying the Easter eggs it seemed a waste to throw out the dye, so I searched pinterest for some ideas.  Dying yarn looked intriguing, but there were too many steps and I had no white wool yarn, so that was out.  Paper towels, on the other hand, I had.  I dipped them in the dye and squeezed out the excess, and hung them to dry.  The pretty stack:

I cut each towel into four pieces, and folded each piece three times:

I then strung them onto Fireline thread (strong and flexible), using my patented random-lookalike technique:

Next year I'm thinking of having the kids dye blown eggs, because Mr. Beadgirl is the only one who likes hardboiled eggs and there are only so many he can eat.  If we do that successfully, maybe I'll restring the dyed paper, interspersing eggs.

I also finished the cross stitch bunnies from a couple of years ago by backing them with some sweet calico and gluing them onto a ribbon:

Unfortunately, top-stitching around the ovals stretched the bias, making the edges a little ruffly.

Finally, for Easter Sunday I made the New York Time's Clementine Cake, and it was delicious, especially with the chocolate glaze. I'd show you, but apparently I forgot to take a picture.  The candied clementines, on the other hand, were not delicious -- they came out brown and burnt-tasting.  I hate it when a recipe defeats me*, so the next time I try this I will not top them with the second baking sheet and/or lower the temperature to 200 degrees and/or watch them like a hawk.

*This is apparently an Easter tradition.  Two Easters ago this lemon cake was a major fail, and last Easter (-ish, humor me) a pink lemonade cake I tried -- twice -- came out both burnt and under-cooked.**

**Actually, I now suspect that recipe was based on the evil lemon cake recipe from two years ago, which would explain the fail.