It’s Easter! Easter is our longest public holiday here in Sweden and I am really looking forward to a few days off with my little family. Spring is finally in the air (even though Alec and I are stuck inside with colds and a fever), the evenings are long and light and I have a gigantic bouquet of yellow tulips (I LOVE tulips) in the hall. I won’t be back until Tuesday so here are some links to keep you busy over the holiday. First of all, some Swedish Easter traditions:

The first signs of Easter on the way are the lent buns, or Fat Tuesday buns that these days seem to appear right after New Years and stick around until Easter. A sweet bun, often with cardamum, is opened by cutting a lid off at the top, hollowed out, and stuffed with almond paste, often mixed with whipped cream and the crumbs of the bun, and topped with whipped cream before the lid is replaced. Some like to eat it in a bowl of warm milk.  Swedes are all about marzipan year round, but especially at Christmas and Easter when little figurines of eggs or chickens adorn cakes and Easter eggs. Before Easter, birch branches are brought inside and decorated with feathers and Easter ornaments (the one up top is in our living room and so far it just has yellow down on it). If you put them in lukewarm water, they eventually bloom, giving you a real spring feeling inside! Little children (girls and boys) dress up like witches and knock on doors in their neighborhoods asking for candy (sort of like trick-or-treating but with lipstick-red rosy cheeks). And on Easter Eve (we celebrate the eve of everything – Easter Eve, Midsummer Night’s Eve, Christmas Eve), children hunt for eggs that are usually made of cardboard and filled with candy. For more on Swedish Easter traditions – check out Willowday here.

LOVE these DIY neon dip-diye eggs.

Leave it to Martha Stewart! Lovely DIY Easter cards using old fabric and ribbon scraps.

I am not crafty enough to even want to attempt a project like these “elegant eggs” but the instructions do make it sound really easy and they really are beautiful (love that you could keep them around year after year and give them away as gifts too)!

I love that these Easter Surprise Eggs from Not Martha can so easily be adapted to fit any occasion whether for the littlest kiddos, or as a fun end to a very grown-up dinner.

Another one from Not Martha. But I have to say – I think these DIY papier maché eggs are much too sweet to even consider breaking!

I love the idea of planting in egg shells – it looks so sweet! Here is one tutorial to try.

Here is an egg DIY that older children could get into (perhaps with simpler shapes or letters).