Easter Crafts
How to Make Perfect Boiled Eggs: Place cold eggs in a pan of cool water, just enough to cover the tops of the eggs. Put on stove and bring water to a boil. Turn off heat, leaving pan on the burner, and cover pan with a lid. Allow to sit for ten minutes. After ten minutes, drain off hot water, place pan of eggs in sink and run cold water over them, or you can fill pan with cold water and ice cubes to cool. Cooling eggs quickly as soon as they are cooked helps to prevent them from sticking to the shell when peeled.
Onion Skin Egg Dying
Latvian children used to use this method to decorate eggs for Easter. You'll need: a bunch of onion skins (save up, or ask your friends or local supermarket), 8"x8" squares of cloth, eggs, bits of rice, leaves and small flowers, string and pot for boiling.
Lay out cloths on a table, top with about 8 layers of onion skins, then bits of design material (rice, leaves, etc.), Place eggs on top and carefully wrap up and tie with a string. Boil wrapped eggs for 30 minutes. Allow to cool completely before unwrapping eggs to see your finished designs.
Natural Easter Egg Dyes
You'll need salt, water, a saucepan, strainer, and natural ingredient for each color. Natural ingredients are: onion skins for yellow, beets for red, red cabbage for purple, coffee for brown, blueberries for blue, or experiment with your own ideas.
Chop or grind natural ingredient, add to a small pan of water with a pinch of salt, and bring to a boil. Simmer for 20 minutes and strain. You'll need a very strong solution to color eggs.
Photo Eggs
Make a photo egg by first decorating a raw egg with bits of colored tissue paper stuck on with glue diluted with water and spread with a paintbrush. Let dry. Poke a hole in the egg with closed cuticle scissors, then use the cuticle scissors to cut an oval out of one side, large enough to work with, but small enough to give the impression of looking inside. Drain and wash the inside of the egg. Fit a small photograph inside. If you have to reduce a photo on a copier, first glue picture to a stiff piece of paper. Move the photo around so that it looks as if it is sitting on the ground when you peer into the egg. You can paint or decorate the inside with tissue paper before adding the photo, if you like, or use other decorations inside instead of a photo.
Starting Spring Seedlings
You can start spring seedlings in an egg carton. Cut off lid of carton. Fill egg cups with soil. Plant seeds in each cup. When seedlings sprout, you can transfer them to another container or the ground.
Heirloom Egg Ornaments
Start with a raw egg. Prick a small hole in the top and a small hole in the bottom of the egg with a toothpick or needle. Push the toothpick into one of the holes and move it around gently, to break up the yolk without breaking the shell. Blow (don't suck!) into the smallest hole over a bowl, to empty the contents of the egg. Set aside scrambled egg to use for cooking. Gently wash out the egg with soapy water, rinse, and allow to air dry for several days.
When completely dry, thread embroidery floss through a long needle, doubling the floss. Run the needle through the egg, from hole to hole, so that the floss is all the way through and hanging out both holes. Cut off the needle and make a loop in the top and a knot in the bottom. Glue knot in place, covering the hole. (You may need to glue on sequins, ribbon, etc., to cover the holes.) Decorate egg with paint, decoupage, nail polish, glitter, sequins, fabric, whatever. Allow to dry. Spray with hair spray or clear acrylic when finished, to give it extra strength.
Eggshell Vase
Just break off the very tops of the narrow ends of eggs when you are cooking, and carefully wash the egg shells. Allow shell to air dry. Paint the shell with nail polish or acrylic paints. Spray paint with clear acrylic or cover with clear nail polish for extra strength when finished and dried. Add glitter, sequins, etc., as desired. You can use a bit or clay or a cardboard circle for a base to hold your vase upright, or the plastic things that come in the middle of pizza boxes work for very small eggs. Fill with a cotton ball soaked with water and tiny fresh flowers, or use tiny dried or artificial flowers. This makes a pretty place setting or gift.
Eggshell boats
Wash and dry egg shell halves. Put a drop of glue on the inside of each shell, then add a small dab of clay. Cut a small triangle out of construction paper and fold in half. Glue one end of a toothpick to the inside seam of the paper, glue the rest of the triangle together, and stick the other end of the toothpick into the clay. Sail away!
Spring Centerpiece
Spray paint a cardboard egg carton whatever color you like. Add glitter, flowers, ribbon, anything you like to make it beautiful. Anchor tall taper candles into the two openings at the top. You may need to stick them into clay, or small candleholders, inside the carton to keep them upright. Set on your table.
Egg Carton Witnessing Worm
You may have seen the Wordless Books put out by Child Evangelism Fellowship. They tell the story of Jesus with no words and no pictures, using only pages with colors. You can make a wonderful Witnessing Worm using an egg carton!
Just cut the side of an egg carton, until you have a strip of five cups linked together. Glue on circles of construction paper in the colors of the Wordless Book, making sure that the "head" is gold (yellow with gold glitter is nice). The smiling face will remind everyone what a happy place heaven is! Add antennae made from pipe cleaners or straw pieces, and draw on a smiling face and eyes with crayons. Now you can tell the story of Jesus!
Gold = streets of gold in heaven; eternal life
Black = sin; separation from God and death
Red = the blood of Jesus Christ
White = forgiveness of sins through believing in Jesus
Green = growing in the Lord by obedience to Him
Tea Set
Wash and dry a Styrofoam egg carton. Cut out the individual egg cups, leaving plenty of the connecting area between the cups intact. Bend the tops a little to form handles for your tea cups, and form a spout with one for the server. One can be trimmed flat for a sugar bowl. Cut out saucers and spoons from the egg carton lid. Children can use this as a tea set, because it actually holds water.
Dolly's Easter Bonnets
Cut the individual cups from an egg carton. Decorate with glue and tissue paper or construction paper to make Easter bonnets for your small dolls. Poke holes in the sides to attach a narrow piece of ribbon or yarn to tie under the chin.
Egg Carton Counter
Use an egg carton to reinforce numbers. Using a permanent marker, write numerals and dots on the inside of each cup. #1 with one dot, #2 with two dots, and so on. Fill each cup with something fun to count, that is not easy to choke on, such as Cheerios or raisins. Put one piece in the #1 cup, two pieces in the #2 cup and so on. Take out the items and let your child replace, putting in the correct number of items for each cup. Take out combinations, and show your child that they are equal. For example, empty the cups for #2 and #3 and notice that it is the same amount as in the #5 cup.
Floral Cross Cards
**Contributed by Joy Marie Dunlap, a home schooling mother
and magazine editor. See her website at www.lighthome.net
Cut out a fat cross on the fold of a piece of construction paper. Any color is okay, but I usually use a nice dark brown, which looks like wood and compliments any color flower. Use flower stickers or flowers cut out of old seed catalogs to decorate the cross, focusing your arrangement on the center of the cross. It is nice to create the effect of flowers spilling across the arms of the cross, and part way down the vertical pole. On the back of the cross, write a verse and short greeting using a contrasting gel pen.
Mosaic cross cards
**Contributed by Joy Marie Dunlap, a home schooling mother
and magazine editor. See her website at www.lighthome.net
Cut out a cross on a fold of construction paper. Cut out strips of 3 or 4 other colors, and cut these strips into squares. Glue these onto the cross in a mosaic pattern. Write a verse and greeting on the back.
Stained-glass window cards
**Contributed by Joy Marie Dunlap, a home schooling mother
and magazine editor. See her website at www.lighthome.net
On a piece of folded black paper, draw a frame around the outside edge in pencil. Inside the frame, draw a cross, praying hands, or any design of
your choice. Cut this out as a silhouette, taking care to keep the silhouette connected to the frame in at least 3 places. The areas you chop out will become the window part of the stained glass window.
Cut or tear colored tissue paper (yellow, pink, and orange are suggested) into pieces as large or as small as you want. Glue these randomly onto a square of waxed paper or plastic wrap as big as your card. When this is dry, open up your black paper card, and glue the tissue paper collage onto the card so that the pretty side can be seen on the front of the card, with
the silhouette and frame on top of the collage.
On the inside of the card, glue on another piece of lighter colored paper to write your greeting on. Optional: Make it so that the person who receives the card can hang the stained glass window in their window as a suncatcher.
