Holiday Picture Holder (the Easter edition)

When trying to narrow down an Easter treat to share with you all today, I had the hardest time picking what I wanted to share. I LOVE all things holiday. I am a tradition fiend who fills every possible nook and cranny in my house with small holiday surprises. And I must say, Easter is one of my absolute favorite holiday's of all! (Though I am fairly certain I say that about almost every major holiday, so just you wait!)

If you were to visit us, here are some of the things you might have seen laying around lately...

Almost all of these decorations require one thing that is very near and dear to my heart: the hallowed egg. Every year my family has spent time blowing out eggs and decorating them. The ones you can see personalized lying around my house are from many periods throughout my life. I love being surrounded by the memories every year. The project that you are about to see incorporates some of these hollowed eggs in a year-round picture and trinket holder I made for this upcoming Easter.

The first thing I did to make this picture holder was buy a set of dowel rods and block holder. I bought them at my local craft store for $1.99.

I wanted to jazz up the rods a bit, so I went to an old standby...type writer wood numbers. They were only $0.69 each and I can never resist a cute number! I simply hot glued the wooden number to the dowel rods in a mismatched fashion. (I chose to vary the height of some of the dowel rods, I wish I had been a bit more dramatic with the height differences now...)

Once I had the numbers in place, I painted the entire set black, and antiqued the numbers edges with white paint. I used acrylic paint for both. It was much easier to paint AFTER gluing the numbers on the rods. The dowel block worked as a great paint drying rack!

To hold the pictures, I used miniature clothes pins which I also bought at the craft store for $1.50 a pack. I painted them black to blend with the dowel rods. I attached two to each dowel rod on opposite sides of the numbers with hot glue after the paint had dried.

The finished product was very neutral and matched the house perfectly, which is exactly what I wanted for something I am planning to use year round.

When I finished the picture holder, I moved onto the accents. First, I transformed some hollowed eggs I had from last year into garland by sticking floral wire through the holes and hot gluing the ends to the egg. I then added crepe paper and ribbon skirts to the eggs for a little pizazz.

I also cut out some current easter egg hunt photos of my daughter and glued them onto scrapbook paper and ribbon accents with fun spring colors. Lastly, I cut some bunnies left over from last week's page flower wreath that I thought I could throw in the mix somewhere. This left me with a nice assortment of fun easter things for my new holiday holder.

I am quite happy with the way it all turned out. It was a very quick and easy project. I love the fact that I can use it year round by simply updating the clothes pins with seasonal images and goodies. It also works well in every room because it is so neutral, so I won't get tired of it too quickly!

I'll be linking up to these great parties this week. Stop by and check out all of the great things I am sure we will find there!