Since I did a lil' something for Palm Sunday, I knew I should create something for Easter. I mean, I couldn't exactly ignore the BIGGEST CELEBRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.
I think because Palm Sunday has a physical, tangible expression of praise in palm leaves, inspiration came naturally. But Easter is a little different.
I'd like to launch into a parable now, regarding my fingernails.YES, my fingernails. Ahem.
I'd been painting my nails every week, and painted palm leaves on them for Palm Sunday. What would I do for Easter? My mom advised an empty tomb. She was joking, so I play-fought her back, "MOM, an empty tomb is just a HOLE, it's a dark CAVE and a ROCK! It's not gonna look good even if I could do it!"
The empty tomb became a running gag. "Draw an EMPTY TOMB!" she'd yell. "NOOO!" I'd yell back. It was good times.
So what then? Not Easter eggs or bunnies. Not the face of Jesus. (No, I do not have that kind of talent.) "The cross," my mom said. I agreed, going with polka dots on most fingers and the cross on my ring fingernails.
Thus ends my parable. ← Feel free to tell me that you do not think I know what that word means. Anyway.
Easter is an empty grave, and Jesus' physical presence. Try adding THAT to your decor.
Well, I did my best.
I chose to make sunbeams to attach behind the cross.
First, I bought 4 pieces of poster board, and some gold spray paint. Then, I measured the paper and cut them into wedges - four large triangles, and eight smaller ones. I didn't take a picture of how I measured and cut the triangles. Here's a super technical drawing for you.
I spray painted them gold. It looked horrible. I didn't think to take a picture. (This was before I created the blog, or I'd have made sure to get a pic.)
I painted over the gold with orange gradating into yellow. Then I painted sparkles overtop. It looked less horrible.
I used this paint.
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| Folk Art Glitter Life in 5875 Gold, Apple Barrel paints in Pumpkin Orange and Yellow Flame |
You can see that because there was gold spraypaint underneath, a kind of odd texture was ...achieved. In the end, I liked the effect better than if there was nothing underneath.
I attached the "sunbeams" using only sticky tack at first. After one of them fell dramatically to the floor like the Beast's final rosepetal, we decided reinforcements were necessary. My husband and my pastor, Tracey, jumped into action to fix that problem. Somehow, the Scotch tape did it. And it didn't damage any of the "sunbeams."
I also found some white fabric and draped it over the cross.
Other decor for Easter included setting out things the church already had: lots of pretty faux flowers. (Isn't faux so much better than saying fake?)
I threw these in this candle arrangement on a whim. I can't decide if it is weird or acceptable. Thoughts?
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| From the front: decent. I think? |
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| from the side: less decent..but not indecent. |
And so, Easter decor happened. It was fun, very affordable, and no dark caves were used. Maybe next year.