Beautiful Roses

Our neighbor Tricia gave us the beautiful roses pictured below for Easter.  They grow in the rose garden at her home which was planted by her father Jim who we all adored.

I will let their beauty speak for itself.

 

La Vie en rose

Easter Gifts

Inspired by daughter Jessica of SunnyStitching, I decided to make chocolate candy this year for our neighbors as gifts for Easter.  Of course, since Jerry was home I wanted him to help me.  We had a fun afternoon Saturday making the gifts.

Our daughter Mary who lives in Indiana made about 80, yes 80, cake pops last weekend and had mailed some to us during the week so we included a couple of those in each basket.

For the chocolate candy, we bought Trader Joe's Fair Trade Organic Dark Chocolate and Trader Joe's Fair Trade Organic Milk Chocolate bars at our local Trader Joe's store.  I found 2 candy molds left at Michael's Craft Store.  Each mold has a flower, bird, broken egg with chick peeping out, and bunny.

Jerry and I were a little nervous but had fun melting the chocolate in the microwave, and basically followed Jessica's instructions which you can see here.

I had also read instructions at a book at Michael's which said to keep the mold in the freezer until it is frosted on the bottom and there are no dark spots on the chocolate.  It seemed to take a really long time for no sports; and we decided to take them out when the small ones left just would not disappear.

Here are some pictures of the candy and the really cute Cake Pops that looked like they came from a bakery.  Mary has always been an excellent baker.  Look at your own risk....you may get hungry!!!!

While the candy was in the freezer Jerry and I realized we needed containers to put the goodies in to deliver to the neighbors.  We asked our neighbor across the street for some of the small plastic plant pots that the stores use to sell plant in. (She usually has lots and is very generous)

Sample of pot we used as baskets.

We wrapped colored tissue paper from our stash of it around each of the pots, and put wadded up white tissued paper in the center of the covered pots.  Then calculated how many cake pops and candy needed to go in each basket, and filled them up!

All ready to wrap the cellophane around them when Jerry said "we need cards".  I had completely forgotten so we cut shapes of eggs from cardstock and decorated them with foam cutouts leftover from the Easter Egg Trees we made with Henry and Corey, our local grandchildren.  (You can tell we were not the most organized);)

We wrote the neighbors names on them and "Happy Easter" as we wrapped the cellophane around each basket and tied with some ribbon in our stash.

Looks like a mountain of cellophane but they are all ready for delivery.  We delivered later today, Saturday, since most of our neighbors were going to be with family on Sunday.

The day ended with a great Easter Service at Calvary Capo Church.

A Beautiful and Joyful Day.