Show and Tell Tuesday

Shhh! šŸ˜‰ When nobody was looking, I stepped into the Show and Tell Tuesday line. (Actually, I don’t have any photos from you kids, at the moment! How about a few from me?)

Sir Beads’ grandparents were born in Czechoslovakia, and when our daughter studied there for a semester, we were thrilled to have a chance to visit an ancestral homeland. We were able to see the villages where his grandparents had lived before they came to America. It was an amazing feeling to enter the churches where they worshiped and to saunter down the paths they had walked. We spent several days in Prague, which is an incredibly beautiful city. I’ve talked about the talent of the Czech glassmakers, but there are many forms of art and music to be found there.

One traditional art is the decorating of blown eggs with paints, dyes, straw, and even fine knotted wire. Various techniques are used including batik, but Sir Beads and I were particularly drawn to those that were dyed and then decorated by scratching off the dye to form intricate designs.

We bought several treasures from this sweet lady, who is hard at work.


Here are the eggs up close.

They are truly gorgeous in person. We use them as Christmas ornaments but they’re meant for Easter. The lady explained that different regions of the country have their own unique methods for creating the finished eggs, and that often you can tell where they’re from just by looking at them.


Poor thing though! She was sitting outside, working in below freezing temperatures, to attract the attention of shoppers. It was the latter part of November. Notice the wool blanket around her waist!


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Have you bought a Christmas present, put up a Christmas decoration, or finished some gift wrapping? C’mon, take a photo! The rest of us wanna see what you’re up to! šŸ˜€

Hugs,

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Eggs-traordinary Keepsakes – Easter Fun

Are you sentimental?

eggsI am and it gets me into trouble sometimes. I find it difficult to let go of anything that reminds me of my family, friends, or just good times. It can be a battle for storage space between the things we need to keep and the things Iā€™d ā€œlikeā€ to keep. For example, I have storage boxes with cards/notes, my kidsā€™ school papers, their baby shoes ā€“ not only their actual ā€œfirst shoesā€, but their first sandals, first sneakers, first ā€œbig girlā€ slippers ā€“ well, you see where Iā€™m going here.

Even though I might be dubbed ā€œoverly-sentimentalā€ in some cases, I think many would agree that holiday mementos are nice to save.

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Since it will be Easter this Sunday, I brought out some Easter eggs that the kids and I decorated years ago.

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It was our first attempt at blowing out the yolks before decorating them. We had read an article on how to do it and were very excited to give it a try. I remember that we poked a small hole on one end and then a slightly larger hole on the other end; inserted a toothpick to break up the yolk a bit, and then began to try what sounded easy in the directions . . . ā€œjust blow the yolk into a bowlā€.

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Hmmm, well it didnā€™t seem easy! I huffed and puffed and finally did one – but whew!!! It was tough! Next my older daughter tried and she had about the same experience that I did. I began to think weā€™d only have a few blown-out eggs to decorate – since there was no oxygen tank on hand to revive us. šŸ˜‰

eggsBut then, up steps my younger daughter to give it a whirl. Incredibly, she does it in seconds!!! We are amazed! She does another and then another ā€“ all quick as a wink. She smiles and says that sheā€™ll finish the dozen. Her sister and I look at her in awe. After she finished the 12th egg, she suddenly felt a little queasy – poor kid!!! Luckily, the feeling passed quickly and the three of us had a great time decorating these eggs.

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We used plastic sleeves for the middle part of each egg, but we got a bit creative painting and dyeing the “ends” of each egg.

As I say, it was a long time ago. Since then weā€™ve had a good laugh about how it took the help of the youngest one to get those eggs ready for decorating! They’ve held up well over the years, though. Storing them in an egg carton has probably helped. I do still love to pull them out and be reminded of the fun we had that day. šŸ™‚

Do you have things you just canā€™t part with?

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