Top Cities for Easter Egg Hunts

Happy Easter 2012!

Kids young and old alike look forward to the family fun of Easter eggs hunts and seeing the Easter bunny.  “We understand that the tradition arrived in the 1700’s from Germany,” says Keith Bansemer, Director of Internet Marketing at Shindigz.com, a leading national party supplies and party decorations company. “We narrowed a list of over one hundred events to highlight the Top 5 places across the nation this year for Easter egg hunts and Easter Bunny sightings.”

San Francisco, California – Spring Eggstravaganza

The relaxing Sharon Meadow in Golden Gate Park is the site for Easter egg hunts for all ages.  Kids can also make Easter hats, animal masks and more.  Add rides, playgrounds, and a rib cook-off, and it becomes a full day of family fun.

Asheville, North Carolina – Biltmore Easter Egg Hunt

The front lawn of this 8,000-acre estate nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains hosts three Easter egg hunts, children’s music, stories, plus magic shows.  Its beautiful setting is why many make this their Easter egg hunt destination.

Copper Mountain Ski Resort, Colorado – 50,000 Eggs Large

While many ski resorts host Easter egg hunts, this free event boasts they’re the largest Easter egg hunt in Colorado.  A big kid’s hunt for ages 12 and up is also held and features 100 “copper eggs” hid on the mountain.

Fremont, Ohio – Hayes Easter Egg Roll

The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center has held an Easter egg roll annually since 1986.  It was started to honor the 19^th President’s role in the first White House Easter egg event.  In 1878, he said yes to youngsters’ requests to play egg-rolling games on the White House lawn.  While Fremont’s population is only about 17,000 strong, it earns a spot for its tie to Easter egg history!

Washington, DC – White House Easter Egg Roll

On the Monday after Easter, it’s estimated that more than 35,000 people will gather on the South Lawn of the White House for the 134^th Easter Egg Roll. This year’s theme of “Let’s Go, Let’s Play, Let’s Move” features souvenir wooden eggs in purple, blue, green, and orange.

The Hunt in Your Own Backyard

It’s not too late to create an Easter egg hunt in your own backyard, basement, or family room area.  Boil and color Easter eggs and hide them next to chocolate, Easter bunnies.  The hunt for treasures such as coins, candy, toys, or church favors can replace eggs.  Let the youngest children start the hunt before the older ones find all of the eggs.  Invite neighborhood children, families from church, and others to partake in the festivities.

Find bargains for next year by shopping for clearance, Easter party supplies and clearance Easter decorations.  If you missed the fun this weekend, create your own Easter egg hunt at home next weekend!

Easter Games, Crafts, and Activities Kids Love

Foam Cross Easter Craft

Easter Party Activities

The highlight of an Easter party is, without challenge, the Easter egg hunt! Here are some simple ideas to make your hunt a foolproof success!

* Divide the kids into three age groups – Ages 3 and under, ages 4 to 6, and ages 7 and up.

* Have color-coded eggs for each age group – especially if your space is limited. For example, have pink and blue for the younger children, purple and green for the older kids.

* Use small plastic eggs and stock each with one small toy or piece of candy – no need to stuff them full!

* For a twist, instead of hiding eggs, hide spring-colored crayons! Once the hunt is over give each child a new coloring book.

Decorate Your Game, Craft, and Activity Area

Balloon Egg Wrap- Wrap colored yarn around a blown-up spring balloon to make these giant eggs. Try blowing up different sizes of balloons and use a multitude of colors of yarn. The results are delicate, so be sure that you handle the eggs carefully.

You will need:

* Spring party balloons

* Yarn

* Liquid starch or white glue

* Paint brush

Blow up the balloon and tie a 2-foot piece of yarn or string from the knot end. This will be used to hang the competed project to dry. Carefully brush the whole surface of the balloon with the liquid starch or watered down white glue. Next, be sure you work quickly before the glue dries. Wrap the yarn around the balloon in one direction leaving small gaps of about 1/2-inch wide so that the surface isn’t completely covered.

Brush on another layer of starch or glue right over the layer you just did and wrap another layer but this time go in a different direction. For example, if the first layer was wrapped horizontally from side to side, this time wrap it vertically from top to bottom. Brush on glue and wrap one more time, varying the direction again. The balloon should be pretty well covered at this point, but you should be able to see spaces, like lace.

Hang the covered balloon from the string and allow it to dry for about 24 hours. When it is completely dry, pop the balloon and very gently pull it out through one of the gaps. And there you have it! Make a dozen of them and hang them all over to decorate your Easter games, Easter crafts, and Easter activities areas.

Broken Egg Riddles

You will need:

* Large eggs cut in two

* Riddle written on the first half of the egg

* Answer written on the second half of the egg

Have the children go around the room and ask the riddle and the second child will give the answer. If the answers are correct, the two children who are matched up then sit down. The game is over when all children have matched up the riddle to the answer.

Pass It On

For this activity you will need a hard-boiled egg for each person and a collection of colored markers. The smaller tip permanent markers work best.

Have everyone gather around the table. Each person takes an egg and draws hair on it. Then each one passes their egg to the person next to them. That person draws the eyebrows. Pass the eggs again and draw the eyes. Keep passing and drawing until all the parts of the face are done. You can include cheeks, nose, mouth, ears, or any unique features like freckles and moles. Then everyone can admire the results! We have a Relay Egg Game Kit too!

Easter Egg Relay

Make 2 large eggs out of pink color corrugated paper for each team.

Divide guests into teams. The first person of a team takes the 2 eggs and lays one of the eggs out on the floor. The child steps on the first egg and then places the second egg in front of them. The child steps on the second egg, reaches back and picks up the first egg and then places that egg in front of them. Continue to the end of the course and then run back and tag the next team member.

Bunny Game

Make bunny faces for all of the children out of corrugated paper. Each bunny will need a white head, two white ears with pink inside, and two eyes made of any color. The nose is a black circle on a pink oval with black whiskers drawn on. The mouth is a black smile shape with two large white teeth. You can make a bow tie for each bunny out of yellow. The object of the game is to make a bunny face. Using a die, for each number rolled you get a piece of the bunny’s face. For example, roll a one and get a head, roll a two and get an ear, roll a three and get an eye, roll a four and get a nose, roll a five and get a mouth and roll a six and get the tie. Keep rolling until all have created a bunny face.

Popular Easter Games for Kids

* Pin the Tail on The Easter Bunny (Use a cotton ball and a simple picture of the bunny).

* Blow the Egg – Have a start line and finish line set up. Place a small plastic Easter egg at the start line and give the child a cardboard “fan”. Have the kids try to “fan” the egg across the finish line. It is harder than it seems, since the eggs aren’t round!

* Bingo – use jelly beans as your markers and let the kids eat them when they yell, “Bingo”.

More Easter Crafts

Tie Die Eggs

Kids are really into tie die these days, so they will love the results of this activity! Make up several colored dyes with food coloring or egg dye. Be sure they are fairly strong solutions (about 2 tablespoons of water to a tablet of dye). Add two or three drops of vinegar to each color to help the color stay. Now, dampen a piece of cloth with water and wrap it around the egg. With an eye dropper, drop spots of different colors of dye on the cloth. Twist the cloth tightly around the egg so the colors bleed together. Gently unwrap the egg and let it dry for totally groovy eggs!

* Make bunny ears by cutting white craft foam into ear shapes. Color the insides of the ears using a pink marker. Staple them to a white headband for the kids to wear home.

* Make Easter bonnets out of paper plates and paper bowls. First, place a paper bowl on top of a plate. Trace around the bowl and remove it. Cut the circle out of the plate using the traced line as a guide. Glue the two pieces together and have the kids decorate the hat with silk flowers and ribbon. They could also use markers or paint to color the entire “hat”.

* Again, use paper plates to create a cute bunny face. Cut one plate in half to be the ears. Staple the ears onto another paper plate. Have the kids make the face out of jelly bean eyes, fruit rollup bow ties, licorice whiskers.

Share your favorite Easter games, Easter crafts, and Easter activities with us!  Which Easter activity ideas have your children enjoyed the most?

Easter Parties & Hunt Ideas

Spring is in the air! Trees, grass, and flowers are reawakening from a long winter’s nap and the Easter bunny is getting ready for Easter egg hunts everywhere! Start planning your Easter party now, it will be here before you know it.

Easter Wall Decor and Spring Decorations
Decorate your walls with adorable Easter or Spring wall decals. These over-sized cheery wall decorations will brighten your space, and put a smile on your face! The decals are self-adhesive and they can be repositioned and moved without damaging your walls. There are also religious decorations available. Hang up elegant tissue daisies on your walls or from the ceiling. These large happy flowers come in blue, green, pink, yellow, and white. Elegant tissue butterflies are a beautiful addition to your spring time party decorations. They have a loop on the back to make them easy to hang.

Cake Pans and Tableware
Bake a delicious cake in one of the 3D cake pan sets. You can choose from an egg, a butterfly, a cute chick, or a cross to impress your guests with your baking skills. Make your table setting a snap with the bunny’s day out kit n kaboodle. The basic kit includes dinner plates, luncheon napkins, cups, plastic cutlery, pearl balloons, lavender plastic tablecover, and curling ribbon. The deluxe kit also includes a banner, an Easter egg mylar balloon, and streamers. For a religious table setting, there are a few nice choices in inspirational tableware.

Party Favor
Give your guests an Easter egg lollipop, which is a yummy chocolate lollipop with a personalized Easter wrapper. There are a few fun, Easter designs to choose from.

Easter Egg Hunt
Kids look forward to the annual Easter egg hunt! If there is not an organized Easter egg hunt in your area, why not start one in your neighborhood this year?! Advertise the egg hunt with a personalized Easter banner that lets you choose the wording for up to 3 lines of text. Project how many children might me at the egg hunt and decide how many eggs each child should collect. Then buy plastic eggs based on your calculation. You cannot go wrong by filling the eggs with jelly beans and Easter candy, but it is also fun to fill a few eggs with special prizes. Special prizes can be money, stickers, bouncy balls, bracelets, and the animal shaped rings and animal shaped bracelets can be a fun surprise too. Everyone will line up to have their picture taken in the personalized bunny photo stand in that features a bunny holding two giant eggs. Get that camera ready!

Make your hunt fun and remember it is a hunt, so keep in mind the ages of the children doing the hunting and hide the eggs accordingly.

It’s Not Too Late to Plan an Easter Brunch Party

As long as the invitations are phoned or mailed about two weeks before the event, it’s certainly not too late to plan an Easter brunch party.  ShindigZ carries both Easter- and spring-themed invitations, and of course there is always the Create-an-Invitation option with several designs in these themes.

Brunch is a most versatile style of party.  Both the time of day (behold the “lunch brunch”) and the level of formality are flexible, the buffet concept indispensible both for simplicity and plenty of visual impact.  Choose a color palette of pastels or take your cue from crocus and other floral harbingers of spring.  A table skirt and a cluster of pastel balloons suspended over the buffet table with streamers is an easy and affordable way to bring the festive.  Fresh flowers and an Easter spring tableware ensemble complete the look.

Traditional Easter fare and brunch intersect at ham and eggs, the former typically the star of Easter meals; but why not consider a turnabout with the symbol of the spring season, not just deviled but frittata’d or quiched Lorraine.  Keep it light with a fruit salad, or toss new potatoes and spring onions in a classic French vinegar potato salad to hint at picnics to come.  Finish off with moist carrot cake in a classic Easter shape or in kid-friendly cupcakes.

Speaking of the younger set, a bucket of sidewalk chalk and an Easter egg hunt let you create memorable activities for a beautiful spring day, but do have a “Plan B” in case of wild weather.   Elicit the help of older children to read Easter storybooks to the younger, hide construction-paper carrots for an indoor scavenger hunt contest, and break out the Springtime Fun Pad activity books or a great craft kit from ShindigZ.

ShindigZ is your store for Easter parties.  Let us help with your planning today!

Host an Easter Egg Hunt with Shindigz

Hosting an Easter Egg Hunt, whether it’s with your family, neighbors, or whole community, is a fun way to have fun with the kids on Easter or in spring in general. Shindigz has plenty of bright, egg themed decorations for creating a festive look at your egg hunt!

Announce the event with our Easter Swirls personalized banner which features your personalized wording on a heavy-duty, weather-resistant banner featuring beautifully decorated eggs. Plus, the banner is sturdy so you can use it year after year for an annual event!

Rope off the section of your hard or indoor venue where the egg hunt will be with Egg Hunt Tape. It’s like police caution tape, but with a cute Easter Egg Hunt print!

Scatter Happy Easter Yard Signs around the yard where the egg hunt will be held. They add a festive touch and are great for setting eggs beside.

Bunny Dizzy Danglers are a fun decoration from hanging from your ceiling or in trees! The danglers feature bright, metallic colors and cute bunnies!

If you have an indoor area of your egg hunt, our Easter Create-a-Scene Decorations are a fun way to brighten up the room. Arrange the cutouts of Easter bunnies, eggs, flowers, and baby chicks in any way you choose for fun, festive décor.

Balloon bunches are classics and a hit for any party! Your Easter Egg Hunt is no different! Create bunches of pastel balloons (they sort of look like eggs!) in odd numbers and secure them tightly with curling ribbon to balloon weights. You can use these decorations inside or outside and kids will love them! Add a Butterfly Mylar Balloon for an extra special touch.

Shindigz has plenty of fun religious favors for the egg hunters who find the most eggs! Our plastic cross necklaces and religious stamps and stickers make great, simple gifts for your Easter Egg Hunt!

Shop Easter Party soon at Shindigz.

Use Personalized Religious Banners in Community Celebrations

Custom banners add a special touch of polish to any event or celebration. ShindigZ has a wide selection of vinyl banners that can be personalized with your own wording, including a beautiful line of religious banners perfect for your church function or worship space.

Each of our banners is printed with your wording on heavy-duty, weather-resistant vinyl and is available in several different sizes to meet your needs. They’re stunning and sturdy, perfect for adding a finishing touch to your decorations or event.

The Jesus is the Light Vertical Banner is a beautiful design with a little girl looking up into a ray of light coming down from a cross. Your personalized wording goes in that ray of light for a big impact.

The Jesus on the Cross Vertical Banner has a bold design featuring a sepia photo of a crucifix at a sharp angle for a really neat look. You can add your own wording and incorporate the banner into your church artwork.

For a beautiful more subtle look, try the Rock and Cross Personalized Banner. It features a black and white print of cupped hands holding a rock with a cross carved in it. It’s really a stunning banner for announcing community events or hanging with a bible verse printed on it.

With bright purple fabric and a wooden cross and crown of thorns, the photo on the Cross and Thorns Personalized Banner makes a striking appearance. It’s great in use for your Holy Week Services or for hanging year-round.

The Communion Personalized Banner features a color photo of a cup of wine and a piece of bread. Add your personalized wording and use the banner in your worship space!

For a natural look, the Gift of Light Vertical Banner features a beautiful scene of green trees and a beam of light. Add announcements or a psalm for a lovely accent to your gathering area or nursery. The Leaves of Grass Banner is another great choice for this purpose. Its photo of dew on grass is simply stunning.

The Christ Has Risen Personalized Banner makes a magnificent addition. It features a bright picture of a dove in flight backed by the sun and is perfect for adding a message of worship. It will look simply radiant!

Check out our full selection of Religious Personalized Banners for more ideas!