Wrap a hatching chic with chenille yarns...

Playful hatching chic among other vintage Easter toys.

 

        This chenille yarn wrapped chic is very easily made with only a few supplies: one large plastic egg, masking tape, ribbon for a hanger, both yellow and white chenille yarn, two black pom poms, Sculpey and white school glue.

       Open the plastic egg and insert a ribbon for the hanger; knot this on the inside of the egg. Shut the egg and cover the entire outside surface with masking tape. This will make it easier for the yarn to stick to the egg. Smear on glue and wrap the egg with yarns as you go. I wrapped the lower half first with white chenille yarn and then the upper with yellow chenille yarn. Paste on the black pom poms for eyes and then shape a little beak for the chic using Sculpey or any other oven-bake clay you have on hand. Glue this beak on and hand the big hatching chic from an egg tree branch or display it inside of a child's Easter basket.

• Make a paper hatching chic - use a free pattern here...
• More ways to wrap eggs with yarn here. and how to wrap eggs with embroidery floss here.

Left, the egg ready for yarn application. Right, the lower white yarn "shell" of our chic.

Easter egg shakers for kids!

Four different sides to my sample rattle or 'egg shaker.'

       Egg shaking toys are very old-fashioned. At one time crafters even filled real egg shells with their contents 'blown out' instead of the plastic egg type used here. 

       Very young children, four or five years old, love to play with egg shaped rattles and dance to music at the same time in the classroom. I have also linked to similar crafts to this one at our family Easter blog below. There are enough instruments to start your very own preschool band if you like...

More Musical Toys/ Noise Makers To Craft:

• How to craft your own jingle stick!
• Kids can make sand-block instruments 'easy peasy'

Supply List:

Left, plastic spoons, rice filled plastic
 egg and masking tape. 

• two identical plastic spoons, (I will need to cut the bottom off of mine.) 
• one plastic egg
• dried rice or beans
• masking tape
• Mod Podge and white school glue
• Decorative rice paper or wrapping paper
• newsprint

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. First assemble the basic shaker by filling a standard sized plastic egg with either uncooked rice or uncooked beans. Just fill the lower half of the egg only.
2. Shut the egg and tape it all around its perimeter.
3. Now nestle the egg between the plastic spoons with the narrow end pointed down. Mask the egg tightly between the two spoons. see photo below.
4. Even the ends of the spoons if one is slightly larger than the other. You won't need to do this if you are using two identical spoons.
5. Tape all surfaces firmly together using the masking tape.
6. Crush newsprint onto and into the crevices of the spoons in order to even-out the surfaces and make the rattle look smooth. 
7. Then cover the exposed newsprint with additional masking tape.
8. Brush on Mod Podge and smooth on decorative papers to finish the rattle. 
9. Add another layer of Mod Podge to seal the end product for durability.
10. Tuck the egg rattle inside of an Easter basket as a gift to a younger child.

Above photos in step-by-step process of wrapping an egg shaker.

Simple Washi tape eggs . . .

These handcrafted Washi tape eggs are excellent alternative egg crafts for a preschool or
kindergarten Sunday school classroom because they are both easy to make with little cleaning
up afterwards. Teachers may also choose to apply the background papers ahead of time
for the very young students.

       Washi tape comes in thousands of different patterns and colors. The Washi tapes I used for the above cardboard eggs have transparent backgrounds. I prefer these backgrounds because you can alter the background paper colors in combination with the dots and lines to make endless variations in egg designs. 

       The paper I used for these two examples were green and lavender. Print and cut out patterns for flat cardboard eggs here. Then cover these with white school glue and paper. And last, use the Washi tape to embellish your Easter egg craft without fuss or mess!

• How to make cascarones or confetti eggs for Easter
• Stencil Easter rabbits or hares eating in a field of clover...

How to dye a 'Teddy bear' egg

Teddy Bear Easter egg for little ones taking a break next to a very hungry caterpillar!

       Use a coffee dye for the first part of this Easter egg craft and then secondly, paint and glue on the features of a teddy bear that any young child will delight in.
       To make the coffee dye simply boil several tablespoons of instant coffee and white vinegar on the stove with a cup full of water. Then soak the mixture along with either a hard-boiled egg or one that has been blown out in advance overnight. To get a rich chocolate brown color the egg must be left in this mixture for over twelve hours!
       Then hot glue on a few fuzzy pom-poms for the ears and nose and other facial features...

Left, a blew out the contents of my brown egg through two holes, one at each end of the egg.
Right, then I soaked the egg in a coffee dye over night in order to get the rich dark brown you
see above.

• Visit our Teddy Bear Index Page for more fun with this theme...
• Not a coffee drinker? Try making these eggs with onion dye, read here...

How to shape a 'crown of thorns' for Easter displays and egg trees!

        To make this small crown of thorns for an egg tree you will need the following supplies: five or six chenille stems, cotton balls, white school glue, acrylic paints (brown and pink).

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Unravel the cotton balls, for this small crown I used approximately five of these. 
2. Squeeze a fine line of white school glue down several inches of the edge of a chenille stem.
3. Wrap the cotton batting fuzz about the glue covered area of the stem tightly with the tips of your fingers. Proceed down the stem with this method until all the it's length is covered with cotton batting.
4. Repeat step 3 several times.
5. Now twist the stems together in a random loops to make a twig looking crown.
6. Cut and twist a thorny looking hook somewhere on the crown form for hanging.
7. For the last two stems, cut small sections of one stem and twist these onto two other chenille stems to look like thorns. 
8. Twist the thorny stems about the crown and set it aside to dry.
9. Once dry the crown of thorns may be painted with brown acrylics. I added touches of pink and purple glitter sparingly to the painted brown stems too.

Left, the original cotton batting version of a crown of thorns for the Easter egg tree.
Right, a painted crown of thorns painted to look like real ones.

 The Crown of Thorns:

• Crown of Thorns symbolism
• How to Deal With The Thorn
• Cut a crown of thorns from paper

Craft Speckled Easter Eggs!

These speckled eggs are made with food dye and uncooked rice.

 

Supplies for making speckled eggs.

       Their are several ways to 'speckle' your Easter eggs with dye or paint, however, this is the cleanest way to do it with little children in my opinion. 

       You will need the following supplies to get started: tongs, rice of any color, plastic sandwich bags (one per color), food dye, white vinegar, eggs, and a pot of water for stove.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Boil the number or eggs of your own choice in a pot of water.
2. Once the eggs have boiled for 10 minutes, let them cool slightly in that water and add a couple of Tablespoons of white vinegar to that same water.
3. Now fill each plastic bag with about 1/2 cup of rice. You will need a bag for every color you wish to make.
4. Add four to five drops of food dye into one bag of rice along with a warm egg (in shell).
5. Seal the plastic bag carefully and then shake it's contents together until the desired degree of speckle is transferred to the egg.
6. Repeat the steps for each color separately.
7. You may repeat the process by coating the eggs with multiple colors and you may continue to add dyes to the rice to intensify the speckling.
8. Toss the rice out when you have finished.
9. Keep your eggs refrigerated until you are ready to eat them for Easter brunch.

Left, use tongs to insert the boiled eggs inside of the plastic bag if these have not cooled enough
before dying. Squeeze 5 or 6 drops of food coloring on top of the rice before sealing the bag.
Right, now for the fun part. Toss the egg and rice back and forth between your hands until it
looks they way you want.

See our speckled eggs in white, green, red and blue.

A crafty way to transform egg designs into baskets...

Egg shaped baskets hang from a early blooming pink dogwood tree.

       To make eggs like these you will need the following supplies: a paper egg pattern, light weight cardboard, scrapbook papers, embroidery floss, white school glue or tacky craft glue, wire for hanging and straw flower embellishments.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Swipe a flat paper egg pattern to your desktop and then print it out from your home computer/ laptop.
2. Cut out the size you need and then transfer it to cardboard. 
3. Form the handle of the egg shaped basket by removing the top half of the egg shaped cardboard cut-out.
4. Repeat steps two and three, excluding the handle.
5. Glue together the two bottom halves to form an open shallow pocket for the egg shaped basket.
6. After the cardboard basket is completely dry, cut from plaid scrapbook papers and decoupage these images onto the lower sections of each basket.
7. Smear more glue onto each handle and then carefully wrap colorful embroidery floss around the handles of the baskets. 
8. Paste straw flower embellishments inside of the shallow basket cavities.
9. Wrap on a wire hook to hang these egg shaped baskets onto Easter egg trees.

Left, cut-out the cardboard pieces, Center, double up on the lower basket to paste two together.
 Right, decoupage plaid scrapbook paper onto the lower halves of each basket.

Refinish an egg with a feather or two...

Pale green and white speckled eggs with feathers glued to their surfaces.

        These factory-made speckled eggs were refreshed with just a small swipe or two of Mod Podge and speckled brown feathers. They took only moments to reinvent! Try doing the same in a variety of colored feathers and eggs. 
       Once I paint the basket shown below, I will include an updated version of it for visitors to see at a later date. For now it is white and will trim an egg tree along with other soft green and white eggs and things...

An egg is nestled inside of a cotton batting, bent 'ivy' basket. This is what the basket looks like
before it is painted to look like ivy. Some people prefer to keep their cotton baskets unpainted.
 If I were to hang this basket on a Christmas tree, I would dust it with glitter
  and twist on a few berries.

• How to Make A Faux, Twisted Ivy Basket?

See another version of the faux ivy basket painted with the colors of Lent
 and then filled with green moss and a speckled quail's egg inside of it.

Craft Cardboard "Resurrection" Eggs . . .

Cardboard 'Resurrection' eggs displayed on thorny shrubs.

        These cardboard eggs are both simpler and more economical for young children to assemble than the version I have described at my Easter blog. I have also included a variety of butterflies and a moth below that young students may print out on their home computers.
       To make cardboard eggs like these you will need the following supplies: cardboard, an egg pattern, decorative scrap papers, white school glue, small twigs collected from outdoors, green acrylic paints, a few cotton balls, string for hanging, a chenille stem and butterfly/moth clip art.

Left, shaping pupa with cotton on a chenille stem. Right, the chrysalis/pupa still need green paint.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Cut out the egg shape from scrap cardboard.
2. Cover both the front and back of this egg with scrapbook papers. Some children may wish to choose to cover their backgrounds with a sky blue paper or a photo of the sky with clouds from a magazine. Other children may choose to interpret their "resurrection'' eggs with more artistic license and select any kind of decorative paper for this vignette. Either choice is fine as long as parents or teachers teach the symbolic meaning associated with the transformation story. I've included links to these below.
3. Cut out a butterfly or moth to paste onto the egg. Alternatively, teachers could purchase butterfly stickers for the craft in advance to stick onto the egg.
4. Now puddle the glue and adhere a small twig to the egg. Let dry.
   
5. Cut a one inch segment of the chenille stem. Bend one end piece of this stem slightly.
6. Unravel the cotton ball, only one of these per student will be necessary if that much.
7. Squeeze a tiny bit of glue along the bristly edge of the cut stem and wrap the stem with the cotton batting. Repeat this step until the stem is shaped to look like a chrysalis, the pupa of a butterfly or moth. If you feel this method is a bit too fussy for very young children: you could shape this pupa from air dry clay or find a photo of the butterfly chrysalis to print and paste onto the egg.
8. Puddle the glue a bit to get the pupa/chrysalis to stick to the cardboard surface.
   
9. Brush on Mod Podge coating last to preserve the egg surface, twig and chrysalis.
10. Punch a hole into the egg, to string a twine or ribbon through it so that little ones may hang the egg in a display or on an egg tree.
    
    

    

    See the cotton batting chrysalis up close.
    

    
    

    

    More versions of Resurrection eggs with the butterfly symbol.
    

     

What do caterpillars, butterflies, eggs and pupa have to do with the Resurrection?

• The story behind the butterfly often told in Christian churches, families and communities... and the second half of the story here. 
  

 Butterflies and Moth Clip Art: resize these as needed...

• Vintage Butterfly Clip Art - most of these are yellow

 

Decoupage Wild Birds On Eggs

"God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves,
with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every
winged bird after its kind;..." Genesis 1:21

       The birds shown in the photo above were decoupaged onto flat, egg-shaped, cardboard cut-outs using magazine pages and a bird book cover from a child's ornithology text book. To make some eggs similar to our own you may download printable birds from the samples restored under my Paper Doll Workshop page.
       "The common name for a bird in the Hebrew Scriptures, is tzephur, the rapid mover, or harrier; a name very expressive of these volatile creatures. A more general and indefinite name is ouph, a flier; but this appellation denotes every thing that flies whether bird or insect. It is frequently translated "fowl" in the English Bible. A bird of prey is called oith, a rusher, from the impetuosity with which is rushes upon its prey. In several of the passages where it occurs, our translators have rendered its plural form by "fowls."

• Find printable cardinals and tanajers here.
• Find printable finches here.

'Nesting Chicken' Easter Egg

Little hen nesting in an Easter egg.

       Turn a half egg into a grass-lined nest for a hen. This makes a clever little ornament to hang on an egg tree at Easter or if you prefer, on a Christmas tree.

• See more animals made for a Vintage Easter Display...
  
• DIY Broody Hens with pom-poms here. - alternative chicken body types instead of the cotton batting one shown on this post.
• and The simplest pom-pom hens for your youngest students here - at our doll blog
  

Supplies Needed:

• A plastic egg, just lower half
  
• 3 cotton balls
• white school glue
• masking tape
• one chenille stem
• a few goose down feathers or white feathers
• watercolors
• dried grass to line the 'egg' nest
• decorative paper and trim for the egg

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Open the plastic egg and keep only the lower half for this particular craft. 
2. Cover the entire part of the egg with masking tape, neatly smoothing out wrinkles with your thumbnail as you go.
3. Decoupage decorative paper on the outside of the egg. Let dry.
4. Attach a handle to the inside of the egg using masking tape.
   
5. Puddle the glue on the inside and line the egg with craft grass of some kind.
6. To shape the hen, cut from a wire two inches and bend the tip into a 'hook' shape as seen in the photo below. 
7. Wrap the wire with a fine layer of glue and twist the cotton batting onto it in layers to shape a hen's beak, head, neck and body.
8. It is not necessary to add or shape the legs of the hen as she is in the seated position, tucked into the dried grassy nest. Puddle the glue generously and tuck her down into the nest.
9. Let her dry in place before adding down feather where her wings and tail should be. 
10. Shape the comb and paint this with red watercolor. Glue it on.
11. Paint the beak yellow and then the eyes.
12. Shape a fancy hook from the left over wire.
    

How to shape the head and neck of the hen from wire and cotton.

Steps for assembling the egg basket and pasting in the parts.

A soft, small hen nestled inside the lower half of a decoupaged Easter egg makes nice addition to egg tree.

"Which came first, the chicken
 or the egg," sung by Mike Stewart

How to make maritime scrap collage eggs . . .

Decoupage flat eggs with Maritime themes for the Easter egg tree.

       Cardboard egg cut-outs with sea or ocean themed subjects. I used the following items to embellish these scrapbook egg ornaments: blue ribbon, tiny real shells, nautical stamps, reprints of Victorian die cuts and Mod Podge. Below are a few of my own printables that students may use to craft their own versions, if the like.

• Victorian print of children playing on the beach here. - This print would also look nice on an egg too.
• Visit the out Beacon Chapel, a safe internet 'harbor' and space to weather the storms of life...
• Read about the significance of light houses as Christian symbolism
•  The symbolic connections between the escallop sea shell and Christianity
• Why Christians use anchor symbolism
  

 Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Cut out cardboard shaped eggs.
2. Glue on decorative papers to both sides. 
3. String blue ribbon through a hole inside a real shell (puka shell) and then through the top of each egg.
4. Apply a generous amount of white glue to the shell hanger to prevent it from working loose from the hole.
5. Brush on Mod Podge to add stamps, die cuts and any other interesting pictures or text to the maritime egg creations.
   

Antique shell paper

Etching of ships

Sailor boy die cut