Make your Easter paper chains early, so that you’ll have lots in store to decorate your home!
It may be early but with the shops already stocking up for Easter, we thought we’d post a quick collection of resources which you might find useful in the run up to that happy spring Sunday. Oh – and in case you’re reading this and thinking to yourself, “When is Easter this year? I must check! we’ve already googled it for you and it’s Sunday, April 16th.
To get back to the point, all the printables below are meant to help children get some fun out of preparing for Easter early, whether it’s through a reminder to be good between now and then from the Easter Bunny, or simply making a mountain of Easter paper chains! We hope you find them useful.
This printable fruit garland is a great way to decorate your house for summer parties, barbecues or just because you want to freshen up your child’s bedroom. All you need is a printer, a pair of scissors, some wool/string and (optionally) some glue.
We know you can probably make this garland without instructions, but we’ve added some steps below, just to help out. We hope you (and your children) have as much fun making it as we did!
How to Make Your Fruit Garland:
STEP 1
Print the slices of fruit you want to include in your garland by clicking on the pictures below. (Each one will take you to a pdf file of that fruit.)
Lime Slice
Watermelon Slice
Tomato Slice
Pineapple Slice
Orange Slice
Cucumber Slice
Honeydew Melon Slice
Kiwi Fruit Slice
lemon Slice
STEP 2
Carefully cut out your fruit slices and fold them in half. Each one is a perfect circle, to make this easy.
STEP 3
Hang the folded fruit slices over a piece of string or wool. TIP: If you are making a long garland and you find the fruit slices are sliding about, tie knots in the string in between each one, to keep them in place. Alternatively, stretch the string straight (like a washing line) and smear/brush some glue along it, then place the fruit slices where you want them before leaving to dry. Once dry, they should stay in place.
STEP 4
Hang it somewhere in your home! We chose our fireplace because we were a bit short on time… but you can probably think of somewhere much nicer. They do look especially nice in children’s bedrooms.
Hello Americans! As you might know, we’re based in the UK, but we had a bit of extra time this month so we thought we’d create some Independence Day printables for you to enjoy. Here they are, listed below…
We hope you have fun preparing for the big day in 2016 and wish you a very happy Fourth of July. xx
Stars and Stripes Popcorn Basket
Color and Craft: 4th July Paper Basket
American 4th July Paper Basket
American Stars Paper Basket
From Sea to Shining Sea Paper Basket
Cupcake Wrappers: Fourth of July
Cupcake Wrappers: Happy 4th of July
Cupcake Wrappers: Happy 4th of July
Cupcake Wrappers: US Stars
Cupcake Wrappers: US Stars
Cupcake Wrappers: Independence Day
4h July Coloring
From Sea to Shining Sea – Independence Day Coloring
Every so often we like to take a look at our web stats and let you know which pages are currently the most popular. In reverse order here’s the top five this spring:
In fifth place is our babysitting thank you note. Unusual for it to receive quite so many hits but perhaps with the weather getting warmer parents are going out more. Whatever the reason, we’re glad you found it useful.
Who knows why, during the spring, our thoughts turn to mermaids? Yet according to our site’s stats, they do.
Perhaps we tell our children more stories about them at this time of the year. Maybe it’s a time when we find ourselves with out children on the beach, looking out to see and firing up their imaginations with magical mermaid make-believe. Or perhaps there are more children learning to swim at this time of year, ready for the summer holiday. (Unless you’re in the Southern hemisphere, of course.)
Whatever the reason, the hits on our mermaid resources always start to increase around the middle of April and this year, the certificate above is the most popular. Perhaps it’s not that surprising, for with the days getting longer and the sea a little warmer, who wouldn’t want to be a “mermaid friend“?
There’s never a time making a paper doll and her wardrobe isn’t fun and this spring our visitors obviously think so too.
In keeping with the magical resources we provide on this site, out paper dolls are fairies… although you could always chop the wing bits of their clothes if you didn’t want them to be. Yikes! Sounds painful though 🙁
As was true last year, our Tooth Fairy notes page is the most hit upon of printables in spring. Could it be that teeth are falling out more rapidly than usual after all the Easter goodies?!! Goodness, we hope not!
It’s the night before Easter and if you’re still surfing for last-minute printables, you’ve come to the right page! Here’s a list of our most popular – all you need is a printer, possibly a pair of scissors, and the children tucked up in bed.
Oh, and we wish you and yours a very happy Easter! Thank you for visiting our website, we hope you’ll come again. xxxx
This is our newest Easter Bunny letter and it was created this year, so it’s definitely one your child won’t have had before. Just print it and leave it somewhere for him/her to find on Easter Morning.
If you’d rather avoid a long letter or note, let your little one know the Easter Bunny has been with his paw print on a little card. You’ll need to print it and fold it as directed.
This is a nice certificate to leave with the Easter Bunny’s eggs. Just print then write your child’s name and the date on it. (Unless you are the real Easter Bunny, you might need to disguise your handwriting!)
This amusing little note shows the Easter Bunny at his humorous best. It’s ideal for boys or girls and great fun to leave with their Easter eggs to be found on Easter Morning.
As we skip around the internet on our run-up-to-Easter coffee breaks, we can’t help noticing some weird and wonderful Easter eggs. So we thought we’d share them with you.
Knitted Easter Eggs
There seem to be all sorts of knitted Easter eggs around (the picture below shows some from Poland) and when you think about it, they’re probably a great idea. Sure, you could carefully create the gorgeous work-of-art type of knitted egg but you could also knit a more practical variety. Soft, washable, and easy to pack away without breakage to use again next year.
These are just beautiful. As if ordinary eggs weren’t fragile enough, these must be as delicate as you can get.
You can make you’re own – even if they’re not quite as elaborate as those above. Like everything else worth doing, it just takes practice and time.
So how do you make them? Surprisingly, we couldn’t find that many online guides but it’s quite well described on this blog– the pictures help too. (Tip: You may need to use Google Translate if the text doesn’t display in English.) The biggest hurdle is that you’ll need a handheld milling machine of some kind to make the holes in the eggshell. If you’re an ardent crafter whose got one already though, just bleach and blow some eggs then perforate away.
Embroidered Easter Eggs
For anyone handy with a needle and thread, here’s another charming idea. I’m fairy useless at embroidery but these make me wish I wasn’t.
Look carefully and you can see how these are done. Eggs are blown, bleached then embroidered with a needle and colourful thread – often embroidery silks. If you’re a beginner it may be easier to use goose eggs rather than duck or chicken eggs, as they are bigger and their shell is less fragile.
Straw Easter Eggs
Or rather, Easter eggs decorated with bits of straw. Isn’t that clever? And pretty too.
Fabergé Egg
Okay so you can’t craft this one, (or if you can you’re either a wizard or a genius), but we thought we’d mention it regardless. After all, who can think of beautiful eggs without thinking House of Fabergé. This one’s called the Winter Egg and in 1913 it was the most expensive Easter egg ever made.
It’s a good question because around the world in different countries and even within different families in the same country, the answer varies quite a bit.
So, in our ever-growing global village, who is today’s Easter Bunny?
Here’s what we know…
Bunny Basics
Most of us, however, have the following rabbity experiences in common:
1.The Easter Bunny visits every Easter Eve. (That’s the night before Easter rather than the day itself – like Christmas Eve.)
3.The Easter Bunny leaves presents. Usually sweets or chocolate or both.
In some cultures, she also leaves toys, money, flowers and painted eggs.
She doesn’t always leave his gifts in the same place. In some houses he pops sweets into Easter baskets, boxes or bonnets (the ones your children made earlier, unless as in our family, you forgot to organise that one and had to rush out and buy the nearest thing the same night. Easter flower pots were what we had last year.)
Fortunately if you haven’t had time to make a container of any kind, he can also leave treats in a basket he made himself. (Ours will definitely be doing that this time around.)
Occasionally, the Easter Bunny also likes to leave her eggs in an Easter nest.
In other homes, she hides chocolate all around the house/garden so that the children wake up to an Easter egg hunt. (A quick tip here – don’t let your Easter Bunny hide a cream egg anywhere it can be stepped into the carpet. Cleaning up quite such a sticky mess does not put an Easter smile upon your face. We speak from experience!)
4.The Easter Bunny can be male or female. (In our house she’s always been female, as you might have gathered.)
5.The Easter Bunny is magical. Obviously. After all, she gets in without a key and manages to bring treats to all the good boys and girls in the world in one night.
6. Though often depicted as white, the Easter Bunny can be any colour. She sometimes carries an Easter basket full of chocolate or painted eggs. She isn’t generally depicted wearing an Easter Bonnet, which, when you think about it, is a bit of a pity.
Paws for Thought – Bunny Differences
There are of course, some ways in which Easter Bunny traditions differ wildly. Here are a few examples:
In Australia, the Easter Bilby is sometimes the visitor of choice to deliver the children’s Easter eggs. Due to the environmental impact of rabbits and the need to support the endangered (and very cute) bilby, many Australians would like to see it replace the Easter Bunny altogether.
Easter Bilby
In France the magical Flying Bells (les cloches volantes) deliver the eggs instead of a bunny. The idea is that shortly before Easter, all the church bells fly away to Rome and then on their way back, they drop the eggs with which they have been blessed while in the holy city. (We’ve never been in France over Easter but it seems as though if you’re out and about on Easter Eve, it may pay to take an umbrella.)
Easter in France: Flying Bells
If you’re wondering how the Easter Bunny gets around the world on the night before Easter, there are different traditions about that too. Some say that she has a secret network of tunnels running all around the world – even under the oceans. If you like that idea, this free printable letter from her backs it up.
The Easter Bunny on her way around the world through his secret network of tunnels.
There are those who say that like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny travels in a sleigh but instead of reindeer, it is pulled by magical flying hedgehogs.
We’ve also heard tell that he travels on the back of an Easter dragon – which is a rather lovely idea – and on the more outlandish side, that she owns a giant magical flying carrot. And after all, why not? It could be quite useful. No need to stop for snacks if you can simply take a bite out of your vehicle as you glide around the globe.
However she gets around, you can be sure it’s the dead of night and that she doesn’t need a Rudolph-type helper to see in the dark. Not with all those carrots she eats!
Valentine’s Day is always a difficult one for us because as you’ve probably realised if you’re reading this, our site is geared towards kids’ printables. Generally speaking, we find most people don’t think of it as a celebration for children. Once upon a time, it was deemed to be a day for the lonely-hearted to find the courage to secretly send a card to someone they admired. Over the last couple of decades however, it seems to have morphed into a day which emphasises the celebration of love between couples. Either way, it’s still largely one for the grown-ups.
Having said all this, we do often get requests for something to print out for the children… so perhaps the whole day is becoming something of a family affair. For those of you who have asked, here is a small collection of what we do have in the way of printables suitable for Valentine’s Day. We hope you enjoy them and of course, that your day is filled with love.
Valentine’s Day Hedgehogs Colouring
Hearts Colouring Page
Hearts Cupcake Wrappers – Kids’ Colouring
Hearts Frilly Cupcake Wrappers – Kids’ Colouring
Red Roses and Hearts Cupcake Wrappers
Red Roses and Hearts Frilly Cupcake Wrappers
Hearts Cupcake Wrappers
Hearts Frilly Cupcake Wrappers
Valentine Hearts Cupcake Wrappers
Valentine Hearts Frilly Cupcake Wrappers
Cupcake Wrappers: Hearts
Hearts Printable Party Bag
Heart Patterned Easter Eggs
Four Fold Printable Valentine’s Day Card
Love Heart Table Place Names
Valentine’s Day Table Place Names
Write a Poem for Valentine’s Day:
Poetry is a traditional part of Valentine’s Day and you may want to find one online or write your own inside a card. If you’ve no idea where to start, you could always take look back into history. For example, have you ever heard a rhyme which starts, “Roses are red, violets are blue”? Well, its roots are probably older than you think. It has been traced back to a very long poem called “The Faerie Queene”, which was written by a man named Edmund Spenser and published in England in 1590. Just shy of a couple of hundred years later, a more modern take on the rhyme appeared in a collection of English nursery rhymes called “Gammer Gurton’s Garland“:
The rose is red, the violet’s blue, The honey’s sweet, and so are you. Thou art my love and I am thine; I drew thee to my Valentine: The lot was cast and then I drew, And Fortune said it shou’d be you.
Obviously given its age, the verse above is now in the public domain, so feel free to use it yourself in any way you choose. Or, like so many before you, you could copy the first two lines then write your sweetheart a special version it to keep for their very own. We can’t think of a more romantic gift!
Every so often, we create a quick list of the most popular printables around the Rooftop Post site. Obviously, what people find useful changes from season to season but here’s what our visitors are downloading so far this spring:
These little notes from the Tooth fairy never stop being popular, no matter what the time of year. At the moment, they are among our top five most visited pages.
The 25th of January is just around the corner. Are you getting ready to celebrate one of Scotland’s favourite sons, that wondrous poet and lyricist, Robert Burns?
Then why not hang a few of the bard’s words around your home?
We hope you’ll find our Burns bunting and other printable Burns Night decorations useful – and that you have a great time.
Burns Night Bunting: Wee Beastie
Burns Night Bunting: Red Red Rose
Burns Night Bunting: Poppies and Snow
Burns Supper Decoration: Black and White Bunting
Burns Supper Decoration: Black and White Bunting
Burns Supper Bunting: Robert Burns Portrait
“Address to a Haggis” (Ready to read for Burns Supper)