So, it’s almost Easter. And you’re making omelets. Or cookies. Or anything with eggs.
No biggie.
Just crack open those white shells and toss the whole thing, right?
Wait! Don’t toss that!
With two seconds of prep and some wheat from your food storage, those shells and carton can double as cute, FREE centerpiece for Easter brunch.
These come together in nothing flat—so easy.
* Gently crack your egg shells on the narrow end, remove the egg yolk and white, and make something delicious.
* Rinse shells in hot, soapy water and dry. Dye with natural or store-bought dyes as you would for traditional hard-boiled eggs.
* Add a tablespoon-ish of potting soil to each egg …
… and cover with sprouted wheat. *
Cover with plastic wrap and make sure soil stays moist, but not soggy.
Wheat will start to sprout in a day or two, with 4-6 inches of growth about a week later.
If the grass gets too tall or shaggy, just grab your scissors and even it out.
The carton doubles as a display tray by trimming down the sides with your nicest dollar store scissors.
And you can change up the look depending on how many eggs you use:
FULL DOZEN
HALF DOZEN
SINGLE PLACE CARD
(name written on egg)
(name on egg carton)
And when you’re done, EVERYTHING gets composted or recycled so there’s nothing wasted.
So …
Egg shells and carton?
It’s What Not To Toss this weekend!
* – Spouting wheat is easy and simply involves soaking and rinsing whole wheat kernels in water so that they start to germinate. There’s a great video of process HERE.
Happy Monday everyone! I’m so excited to be blogging from my hometown in Washington following a 13 hour drive Saturday with our Dirty Half Dozen.
And thanks to a little planning, the trip was actually … awesome. The kids did great, we made good time and even managed to save enough money on travel snacks to be able to afford gas for the trip home–ha!
So this week I’ll be sharing some THRIVE friendly tips for surviving those summer road trips without breaking the bank or loosing your mind. And as always, you should be able to pull together these easy snack ideas without a run to the store
Today’s feature: 3 easy snacks for the road or camp ground.
1) Empty peanut butter jar + celery sticks
Finally a way to have p.b. and celery without the mess. Fill an empty jar with an inch or two of peanut butter and then fill with celery sticks. Kids get a yummy snack without sticky fingers and the car stays free of kid schmeer.
2) Empty sour cream container + empty baby food jar
A quick way to pull off carrots and dressing without the dragging the jar along or buying those expensive to-go dressing singles.
3) Empty 32 oz. yogurt container + single serving yoplait
Easy peasy fruit slices and dip. So yummy straight from the cooler at a camp site or rest stop.
Delish.
So there you go–easy straight-from-the-recycling-bin solutions for eating well on the road.
Begin by removing any border from the pans and smoothing them out as much as possible.
(This was as good as I could get my pans and they turned out fine.)
Print out a star to use as a template for cutting and tracing. I found my image here.
Adhere your template with a small piece of double-stick tape …
… then trace along all the lines using a ball point pen and a ruler. Yes, you need the ruler.
When you remove your template it should look like this:
Carefully cut around your star leaving an 1/8” border all the way around …
… tapering the border near the points …
… and snipping up to the tracing line on the inside points of the star.
Fold the star over and go over all of the trace lines with the lid of the pen to make the lines both easier to see and bend.
To finish the edges, place the ruler just below a trace line. Starting at tips and working towards the center, carefully lift up along the border …
… and fold it over the ruler lip.
Remove the ruler and press the border down first with your fingers …
… then smooth completely with the pen lid.
The shape of the star is a series of mountain and valley folds.
Starting from the center, fold the short lines in between the points downward to make valley creases.
To shape the points, push up from the back of the star along the center seam, working from the center out.
When you’re done, your star should look like this:
To make the ornament hole, gently twist a small eye screw in one of the points.
You can leave your stars plain …
… or hit them with a coat of primer and spray paint for a smooth, seamless finish …
… or sponge on a coat or two of craft or house paint for rustic, weathered look …
… or rock out your favorite dollar store nail polish for a little bit of BLING.
My genius six-year-old actually came up with the nail polish idea. She snuck off with one of the stars and returned a few minutes later with this little beauty:
Love, love, love all of the paint options! Have fun picking your favorite!
1. What if I don’t have any disposable baking sheets lying around? Will aluminum foil work?
Not really. See?
I tried several different thicknesses and it never was stiff enough to hold it’s shape well. The star above was with eight layers which is about the most you can cut without the layers separating horribly. You really do need the stiffer material.
2. Is there a shape or pan size you recommend?
I used old cake pans like these to make my stars since it was all I had.
But, if you are going to buy pans to make this project, I’d recommend using a disposable oven liner if you can find it. You get the most bang for buck with that size and have minimal waste.
The price is pretty cheap either way:
The dollar store carries pans like this, too. Just stay away from the deep-sided pans with heavy grooves in the bottom.
3. How big (or small) can you make these things?
The only real limit is the size of baking pan you can find–the oven liner pan will make a 12” x 12” star easily. On the small end, I wouldn’t go much smaller than 2-3” tall. Any smaller is too much of a pain to work with.
I made two sets of ornaments for my tree. Just for comparison, here they are next to a graham cracker box. The scale was perfect.
4. One last thing … print out your template 130-150% of what you want the finished size to be. The folding and dimension will make your finished star shorter/smaller than the template.
