Sewing, Stage Managing and Surviving: Holy Thurday

In honor of Easter this Sunday, this T-cubed post is Easter themed!

Today my tip falls into the "surviving" and "sewing" (which is my s-word meaning crafting in general).

It is Salvage.

I don't mean pull things out of the trash, but save look at things in a new way to save money. For instance, my boyfriend and I wanted to make Easter baskets for each other since this is our first Easter away from our homes. We set a $20 budget and let creativity rule. Neither of us have a lot of "storage" space, (since we both are basically nomads who came to New York with 2 bags each) so I didn't want to invest in nice baskets to use year after year like my mom does. But I also didn't want to buy something cheap that we were just going to throw away. (That money could have been spent on CANDY!) So I made our Easter baskets from shopping bags!

I made this one for my Boyfriend

You can kinda tell it's made from green grocery bags

To make this Easter Basket I used this tutorial to make the "plarn" (plastic yarn) and I used this pattern to make the basket. I used an H/8 hook and looking back I should have used a different hook so the basket could have been bigger, but since I had no idea what I wanted to put in the basket when I made it, the coffee will be the outsider.

I filled the basket with a beer (especially good since he gave up alcohol for Lent), two plant grow kits from the dollar section of Target, Star Wars gummies that I found for a dollar at Duane Reade, Coffee that was on sale at Target and Jellybeans!

My basket is empty so far...

Here is the basket ~~I made~~, the EASTER BUNNY made and had me deliver to my Boyfriend so he would not have to buy one. I used this tutorial but made it taller.

I made it using a Whole Foods bag that had a beautiful chartreuse print on it.

See how pretty?

Today's Template is my Menu Template. I made it a few years ago for Thanksgiving and I just edit it with each big meal. I didn't update it with my meal, but when I find a recipe online that I will be using I hyperlink it in the document, so I can access it easily the day of the cooking.

You can download my word document below.

Easter 2012 Menu

The tutorial I have lined up for you goes with the recycling theme and was created because I had a problem. Well a good problem! My boyfriend and I are having an Easter Monday dinner with another couple and I wanted to give everyone a decorated egg as an Easter present at the table. My problem is that I don't have those special egg cups. So how could I keep the egg from rolling around? Toilet paper rolls!

I started with another Whole Foods bag and cut out the side panel.

Next I found and marked the center of the Toilet Paper holder

See the black lines?

Then I cut the tube along the lines.

Ahhhh Two egg holders!

In the next step I should have measured, found the height and circumference and cut the paper using those dimensions, but I am lazy so I eyeballed it.