So many children love to make Easter eggs but did you know that there are even more things that you can do with the carton. I had a wonderful Grandmother, her name was Bernice but many of the grand kids called her Grandma Bunny. She was the Easter Bunny Carton Queen. She always had a bunch of egg cartons on top of her refrigerator for crafting. She often used the styraphome kind, sometimes you can find this type and skip the painting part, but then, where is the fun. She could make about anything you wanted out of an egg carton. Her favorite things were Turtles and Tulips - something for the little girls and something for the little boys. She was an awesome grandmother! I love her so much so this blog is for her.
Turtle Necessities
Egg Carton - the paper kind
Green, Red, Blue or Whatever Color you wish - Tempera Paint
Scissors
Craft Foam - Green is traditional but other colors if you wish
Sticky Backed Google Eyes
Paint Brush
Water Cups
Markers
Sharpie Marker
Pencil
Glue Dots (Better than hot glue=NO BURNS)
Tulip Necessities
Egg Carton - the paper kind (again)
Pink, Blue, Red, Yellow - or whatever color you wish Tempera Paint
Craft Foam - Green
Pipe Cleaners (some call chenell stems) in Green
A button
Paint Brush
Water Cups
Sharpie Marker
Pencil
Glue Dots (Better than hot glue = NO BURNS)
Turtle
Cut out around each little egg cup. then lay the egg cup on the craft foam. I simply have the kids draw a head, 4 legs (2 on each side) and a tail. No big deal, each one will look different but it is super OK, creativity is key to fun, so don't worry about a pattern and stuff. With a pattern no one makes mistakes, and mistakes are how we learn! Let a few mistakes happen and then try to solve them creatively. Don't cut through the craft foam until you have drawn the image of the turtle exactly the way you would wish - in pencil. Then I have the kids go over the lines they like with a sharpie marker. Mistakes can be made into wonderful dots of color with markers - You can even use markers to jazz up the shell later if you wish.
Paint the Turtle "shell" which is the egg cup. Green is traditional. Make sure the first coat isn't too wet. Mix the paint thick or else you will have soaked turtle shells that never dry and may also simply end up as piles of paper yuck. After they dry you can flick the paint on with a toothbrush for a cool effect. They can do this with a stiff brush. If they are not the "Jackson Pollock" type they may rather paint on some fancy dots or designs. Let them choose. After this wait for the shell to dry again. Then, "glue dot" the edges onto the craft foam pattern of the head, tail, and legs of the turtle. Add the Google eyes and Volla! Really fun and easy, and cute.Tulips
These are the ones I loved to do. Cut around the egg cups - leave the little legs on each cup, or the petals on each cup. We would paint the cartons any color we wished using the tempera
paint and the brush and water cups. Don't make the paint too thin - they will never dry and the carton will be too wet to work with and may fall apart. Simple paint job on these is the best. Simply one color per carton cup. But have each kid do three or more for a better bouquet. Now, simply push the pipe cleaner into the bottom of the egg carton. Then, pull a little of the stem through the carton and make a nice ball. You can add all kinds of things inside the tulip to hold the pipe cleaner in place - grandma usually used a button, but you can use a little pom pom or even just the pipe cleaner itself balled up. Again, creativity is fun, encourage kids to use their own ideas. I always find that their ideas are better than anything I could ever dream up. It is wonderful when ideas are different, remember God didn't make all flowers the same either, not even all tulips are the same. So, don't stress. Then cut out a little leaf pattern (works best to double the pattern and fold it over itself and use a glue dot to hold. Put them all together and you can even tie a little ribbon around the entire thing, or put them in a painted toilet paper tube - again it is up to the artist to decide. It is really a fun Easter Craft!Thank heavens for the Easter Bunny (and in my case that was my Grandmother Bunny)!
Happy Easter Crafting~
