Enjoying a spot of Lucy Maud Montgomery's springtime poetry

✯ Day 113 of Vintage 365 ✯

 

Easter weekend should be a time of peace and happiness, of celebrating and holding dear that elements of this resplendent part of the year that matter most to you and your family.

Though we had snow as recently here as Monday the 18th (though to be fair, it was more like a three-part flurry of rain, snow and tiny pea meal sized balls of hail), by and large the world is looking, feeling, and even smelling more like spring (gone is the heady, beautiful scent of wood smoke in the air, in its place the earthy aroma of damp soil and budding verdant grass).

I awoke on this fresh Saturday morning with the words of a poem by beloved early twentieth century Canadian writer Lucy Maud Montgomery dancing like springtime pixies in my mind. While we commonly associate LMM with her superb books (most famous amongst which is the Prince Edward Island classic, Anne of Green Gables), Montgomery was also a gifted poetess who wrote a wonderful array of poems during her lifetime.

The piece below, titled elegantly "Spring Song", is amongst my favourite of her poems, and one that I enjoy rereading each year as spring really and truly begins to come to life in my own corner of the Canadian landscape.

To further help impart of a delightfully seasonal vibe to today's post, below Montgomery's graceful poem, resides a vintage French photo postcard (which comes via Chicks57 on Flickr) of a young girl carrying an oversized basket of spring flowers, that I thought partnered well with this timeless poem.

 

Spring Song

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

 

Hark, I hear a robin calling!

List, the wind is from the south!

And the orchard-bloom is falling

Sweet as kisses on the mouth.

 

In the dreamy vale of beeches

Fair and faint is woven mist,

And the river's orient reaches

Are the palest amethyst.

 

Every limpid brook is singing

Of the lure of April days;

Every piney glen is ringing

With the maddest roundelays.

 

Come and let us seek together

Springtime lore of daffodils,

Giving to the golden weather

Greeting on the sun-warm hills.

 

Ours shall be the moonrise stealing

Through the birches ivory-white;

Ours shall be the mystic healing

Of the velvet-footed night.

 

Ours shall be the gypsy winding

Of the path with violets blue,

Ours at last the wizard finding

Of the land where dreams come true.

 

I hope, sweet friends, that this charming look at spring, in its endlessly appealing grace and wonder will help launch your weekend (and Easter Eve!) off on a deeply cheerful note - as it most certainly has mind.

Reflecting on the timeless beauty of Easter

✯ Day 112 of Vintage 365 ✯

 

Joyful Good Friday wishes, my wonderful dears, may this special morning find you all doing splendidly and gearing up for a fantastic weekend. On this end it's pretty much just another Friday as usual, though with (the hugely appreciated) added bonus of being fairly pleasant on the weather front.

Though I'm still not spying any new blooms outside yet (who knows, they may still spring to life before Sunday), there's a whisper of warmth in the breeze that seems to be saying "have no fear, winter is finally behind us!".

Is that really the case, or just a matter of wishful Canadian thinking? Well, it's hard to say for sure (given that parts of country, like Calgary, experienced a fresh snowfall as recently as a few days ago!), but I'm all for looking at the glass half full (or in this instance, the snow bank half empty) and hoping that we are on our way to a (knowing Toronto as I do) rather brief spring before we barrel headfirst into another humid-as-a-Brazilian-rain forest summer.

With the holiday weekend upon us, I'm in a festive, chipper mood. Though gone are the days of scavenging around the house for tiny candy eggs (interestingly, given that as I grew up, I learned many people did, my family never hid Easter eggs outside - perhaps because our dogs probably would have ate them before we could! :D), I still like to lay in a few special treats and prepare a delicious Sunday meal.

I find that - so often unlike Christmas - Easter tends to be a more serene holiday. There isn't the frazzled hurry of shopping for (and wrapping) mountains gifts, sending scores of cards out, attending social function after social function, smiling like a monarch during office parties, and the need to prepare enough food to feed the armies of at least ten countries.

Easter is, in many respects, a sombre holiday, but also one of great felicity and rebirth. It celebrates the arrival of spring, the return of a green world, and the merriment of life itself. One is more free to celebrate it as grandly or simplistically as they desire, and it's towards the later side of the scale that my festivities generally fall.

 

To me Easter is a lot like this lovely Family Circle magazine cover from 1953 (which comes via CapricornOneVintage's Flickr stream). It's a day of dignified beauty, special memories for children, darling animals, and simple pleasures.

Tell me, sweet friends, what does Easter mean to you and your family? What sort of memories about this holiday to you look forward to most each year, and how to you like to incorporate your love of the past into your present day Easter celebrations?

This adorable vintage Easter Egg Cake recipe is sure to please everybunny! :)

✯ Day 110 of Vintage 365 ✯

 

Without a doubt, I think it's safe to say that one of the best parts of nearly any major holiday is the food! Indeed, there's a reason why these special celebrations were so often called fest days in years gone by, for it was through an abundance of food that one shared with their family and friends in the merriment of a certain date.

While in some households Easter might not quite produce quite as huge an array of meals, baked goods, and sweet treats as Christmas, for many it does (or at least comes immensely close). An Easter menu may call to mind roast meats (ham, lamb, turkey, duck, etc), oodles of fresh vegetable dishes (made all the more spectacular if they were cultivated from one's own budding spring garden), warm, yeasty breads piping hot from the oven, and plenty of candy in every nook and cranny of the house, however I can't imagine letting Easter come and go without one especially lovely standout dessert, too.

Each year I like to change things up, always seeking something festive, cheerful, and - whenever possible - vintage in origin. Today recipe, which harkens back to 1953, fits absolutely all of those points to a tee!

Dubbed, rather appropriately (given its appearance), the Easter Egg Cake, this marvelous dessert marries yellow cake (in this instance from a cake mix, but you could just as easily use homemade) - that is cut into the shape of half an egg - with layers of rich Baker's Chocolate frosting. This Peter Cottontail approved cake is then given a further boost of sugar care of piped decretive white frosting and jelly beans, to help complete the final Easter egg look.

{Click here for a larger version of this scrumptiously festive vintage Easter Egg Cake recipe.}

One of things that appeals to be about this great Easter dessert (which comes via saltycotton’s terrific Flickr stream) is that's a shaped cake that doesn't require a specialty pan. The egg form comes to life thanks to a little trimming and creative stacking, which is held in place with chocolate frosting (the most natural of icing flavours for this time of year).

If you like, you could easily play around with recipe to your heart's content. Varying the type of cake and/or frosting colours to match your Easter menu, table decor, household decorations, or even your mood.

If you’re feeling creative, why not reverse the colours and create a chocolate cake with white frosting (white looking even more like an eggshell!), or create a white chocolate cake with buttercream frosting that you tinted pastel pink, purple, yellow, green, or blue - just like a real home-dyed Easter egg.

Whichever direction you take this cheerful vintage cake in, it's bound to be a hit with all the bunnies (aka, guests) at your Easter table this year!

Dumpling Dynasty’s Bunny Kit is too cute for words!

✯ Day 109 of Vintage 365 ✯

 

Do you love things that are cute/kawaii and utterly, fabulously ripe with more vintage inspired charm than you can shake a carrot stick at? Well then, my wonderful dears, you are in luck then, because today's post is going to be right up your alley! :)

With Easter weekend fast approaching, it's only natural that one's thoughts turn to all things bunny related. From lapins en chocolat to pink nosed, ultra cute bundles of white fur hopping around one's garden, rabbits are suddenly everywhere this time of year.

Though the costumed candy-hiding, costumed bunny at the mall may satisfy the younger generation, for those of us who still celebrate the spirit of Easter - but don't quite think Mr. Mall rabbit is fooling anyone - there's nothing like a little vintage Easter DIY charm to get you in the festive mood.

Without a doubt some of the most quirky, fascinatingly illustrated, enticingly appealing kawaii meets vintage lines on the market today is Dumpling Dynasty. Bursting with nearly blindingly bold hues, fantasy meet classic mid-twentieth century Chinese meets saccharine sweet kawaii art, and oodles of crafty sewing, baking, DIY, beauty and other equally delightful products, this brand is bound to deliver something for everyone.

Come Eastertime, that something might just be Dumpling Dynasty's Bunny Kit.

Bursting with everything one needs (including the stuffing) to sew up a squeal-inducingly cute plush rabbit, all nestled inside a fabulous teal-green tin depicting two little girls cheerfully whipping up their own little handmade bunnies, this awesome kit (of which I found the best US price - of $17.99 - on Amazon.com) is beyond perfect for anyone on your Easter shopping list with a penchant for vintage, kawaii, sewing or bunnies!