Nursery Easter Craft!

So I was going to post this last week, but our schedule was crazy. (see my last post: Thoughts On Life).

Anyway, I got an idea from a couple places online and decided to make my own version of this and included this recipe. So I made my own edible Easter garden with the kids. Since I had nursery kids (ages 0-3) I made a few things ahead of time and had them put it together on Easter morning in the nursery. Here's my step by step directions: 

Items needed:

- Cookie recipe (link to follow)

- Cookie cutters (cross and round)
- Bag of shredded coconut
- Food coloring
- can of Grands biscuits
- large marshmallows
- toothpicks
- Whoppers (or other small round candy - for rocks/stones)

1) Prepare Sugar Cookies. I used this recipe for Brown Sugar cut-out cookies and icing. Then I cut out crosses and circles, baked them and let them cool:

I didn't have a cross cookie cutter so I made a cross out of cardboard and cut out each cross with a butter knife. If you have a cross cookie cutter, this is a lot easier!  :-P

I just used a standard size (~2in) cookie cutter for these (they are for the base of the cross).

2) Prepare Icing. I made the icing and dyed each one a different color. I used blue, pink, yellow and green but you can make any colors. (I had some plastic egg cups for dying eggs, so I separated the icing into 4 parts and then dyed each one in each cup) I also wasn't going to iced the cookies until the next day with the kids, so they are in plastic bags to keep from drying out:

  

      

3) Prepare the coconut:

Green food dye(grass):          Coconut in a ziploc:

        

Add dye to coconut:           Shake until all covered:

     

     

4) Make the He's Risen buns:  

I prepared these ahead of time as well, but showed the kids how they were empty like Jesus' tomb was when he was risen. Make them with your kids though with this recipe. 

Prepare them as the recipe says.

I made these with the small biscuits and bad idea (the marshmallows all busted out of the bottoms). 

Make sure to use the Grands biscuits!  :-)

5) Frost the cookies!

I did this with the kids at church, but I frosted my own to show them first:

 I frosted a circle in green icing too and with a toothpick, poked one end into circle cookie,

leaning to back of the cross standing up. Allow to dry/harden  :-)

6) Put it all together! 

 I broke open the tombs to show them that it was empty. Next, I put the cross on one side of a paper plate and the tomb on the other side toward the top. Then, I scattered coconut around to look like the grass. Last, I placed 4 Whopper candies leading to the tomb. This is the finished result!

Here's the ones the kiddeos made too:

            

    

Happy Easter everyone! (even though it's a bit late  ;-P)