Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek
Here is my old easter grass dispenser… For those of you that haven’t experienced my packaging first hand, I typically use shredded paper for my box stuffing…. But my shredder is the cheapo jamming sort and the shredded paper was very linty and frankly, it was driving me (and our sensitivity to dust) bonkers….
A couple of years ago I bought Easter grass for boyo’s first official “old enough to know the day is different from other days of the year” easter basket. As many of you know, I am an official liason for the Easter bunny, and I enjoy the special job of assisting him with some of the smaller details of his journey to our home. This year he brought a couple of books, by the way, as boyo is getting very good at reading.
Anyway, at that time I did not fully understand the whole easter grass to basket ratio. Clearly, I had no grasp on the expansion of easter grass when expanded and fluffed as I purchased 10 bags from Target, of the green paper variety. 10 bags. There is one child in this family.
But I couldn’t just throw it out or recycle it, and as it is shredded our local recycling/waste management organization will not accept it. So I sealed it up in a plastic box with other paper goods and forgot about it.
As many of you know, hunting for decorations for a specific holiday will always turn up decorations that were lost when you were looking for them the previous holiday (ie Christmas reveals Easter, Thanksgiving reveals Halloween- well, except in our house. I have made a large effort to incorporate a pumpkin theme into Thanksgiving. Hey, I’m disabled and I’m freaking tired and I love pumpkins and orange. It’s all good. It’s better than a sharp stick in a sensitive place, or *gasp* no decorations at all, which I have been informed would make me a lazy, terrible parent. By the way, thanks Mom. You are so very inspiring with your gentle words and yearly addition of a faux Christmas tree to our bursting collection in the garage.)
So at Christmas I got a fabulous gift… My giant collection of easter grass… So I switched to using a few strands as cushioning in my little Gocco printed slider boxes. Much neater. And prettier. Goes with my whole lust for contrast…Faux grass, faux bois… Lovely.
But, the question remained. How to neatly store the grass so it would still be easy to just grab a tuft when gift wrapping outbound orders…A plastic ziploc did not work as it was quickly confiscated by boy and used as a projectile until the ziploc opened and it rained grass everywhere. Don’t fret, I will be posting about the new portable emergency vacuum soon…. Well, one bag of grass down the crapper…. I sat looking at a sealed bag and put my thinking cap on….
Well, those handy plastic containers (read my labelmaker post…the short story: I compulsively purchase plastic containers…) came in handy once again…. With a quick stab of my sheet metal sheers I shaped a hole in one of the lids…. You can see, in the image, a tuft poking out….
The problem? Dust. We live in SW Florida and we seem to have an endless supply of dust here. Eek. And we love garlic and hubby makes tacos for himself once a week. Old cooking odors are nasty and really adhere to papergoods. So I have been trying to find another, handier, sealable containment device as I have stubbed many a toe in the frantic dash to shield my packing materials from garlic. The mere sound of olive oil in the pain makes me panic these days…
I was in Target the other day and I was looking at the lovely snapware containers…. Someone put one back in the wrong place and I knocked it over when reaching for something else and Eureka!
A cereal dispenser!
With an opening big enough that I can fit my fingers in to advance a tuft of grass and a lid (with a rubbery gasket!) that clicks securely and conveniently shut…
Problem solved. Hope this helps someone else with their easter grass dispenser needs….
And I am proud to announce that now I can find my labelmaker and my easter grass. And for those of you that are curious, I did not label this container. It took much restraint, on my part. But it’s faux grass in a clear container. Doesn’t really need a label…Or does it? ha. ha.
