Easter Roundup of Past Crafts/Recipes

I had hoped to get some Easter crafts completed and posted, but as I am running out of time, here is a round up of Easter items I have made in the past that I hope can inspire your own creativity:

Dragon Eggs made out of plastic Easter Eggs

Source: craftsandcreationswithkathy.blogspot.com via Kathryn on Pinterest

Radioactive Peep Nests

Source: craftsandcreationswithkathy.blogspot.com via Kathryn on Pinterest

Pop Art Easter Basket made out of soda pop case

Source: craftsandcreationswithkathy.blogspot.com via Kathryn on Pinterest

Source: craftsandcreationswithkathy.blogspot.com via Kathryn on Pinterest

Dragon Breath Slayers

Source: craftsandcreationswithkathy.blogspot.com via Kathryn on Pinterest

Easter Wrap

Source: craftsandcreationswithkathy.blogspot.com via Kathryn on Pinterest

Bunny Tails

Source: Uploaded by user via Kathryn on Pinterest

Easter Egg Seeds

Source: craftsandcreationswithkathy.blogspot.com via Kathryn on Pinterest

Easter Bunny "Carrots" (filled with crackers)

Source: craftsandcreationswithkathy.blogspot.com via Kathryn on Pinterest

EASTER VEST

I thought I would share this oversized vest I made when my son was little to wear around Easter and I thought I would share as I have gotten lots of compliments on it over the years.

This is a vest made out of pre-printed fabric and fabric, but the pictures are simple and the ideas could easily translated using fabric scraps and fabric paints.  Use an existing vest as a template for the sizing (or make it bigger if you like (be sure to add 1/2 inch all the way around for the seams.  


For the pink flower on the front just use a piece of fabric around 10 inches long and four inches wide, sew a gathering stitch at the bottom, gather and roll into a flower and hand sew where you would like.  

The 2 ties in back are about 10 inches long by 3 inches wide.


I chose to line mine using an old sheet, but you could leave it unlined.  Before sewing the vest together I used the pieces cut out for the front and the back, pinned them to the sheet and then cut out.   I then sewed the vest then and then lining then put the right sides together and stitched all the way around the vest (except for the armhole) leaving an approximate 4 inch opening at the bottom.  I then turned right sides out and hand stitched the edges together at the bottom. 

For the arm holes I pressed the seams under 1/2 inch on each arm hole and hand stitched together, but you could machine stitch 1/4 inch from the edge to save time.

Mini Easter Basket

Make a fun little basket out of an empty 2 liter plastic bottle!   It is super easy and took less than 10 minutes and cost me nothing as I had all of the supplies on hand.

I made this for Easter, but it could also be used to hold party favors for a birthday party.  I had hoped to get this posted before Easter, but I started a new job two weeks ago and I am behind in my postings and crafting.  I am participating in Dollar Store Crafts Stash Bust and have lots of projects to use up stuff from my stash.

Items used for this project:

• 2 liter bottle  - empty and rinsed out
• Craft or Kitchen Scissors
• Candle
• Matches or Lighter
• Amazing Goop Glue or Hot Glue Gun and Glue Sticks
• Ribbon (around 24 inches)
• 1 clear stone or button
• Easter Grass or shredded paper
• Candy or other small goodies

I used an empty Mountain Dew 2 liter bottle and rinsed it out and removed the label, but you might want to leave the label on as a reference point for cutting.  Pinch it on one side and cut into it just below where the bottom of the label was (is) and cut all the way around.

Light the candle and hold the cut edge to the flame close to it, but not directly on the flame and the plastic will curl under on the edges so you won't have rough edges.   The challenge is to get it to look even all the way around.

Cut a length of ribbon for the handle - I didn't measure it but I am guessing it was about 12 inches long.   Glue each end to the bottle bottom on each side about an inch down from the top edge.






















To hide where you have glued the handle, wrap a piece of ribbon around the top edge of the bottle, overlapping slightly and then cut the length you want then glue it down then pick a clear stone or a button to embellish it.  I chose to glue mine and make it off center to make it a little different, but you could do it however you would like.













Fill with Easter grass and small candies.

EASTER EGG PRESENT WRAP

I was trying to be creative with wrapping my son's Easter present, but short on time. This took about 10 minutes from start to finish. As I already had all of the items on hand, it did not cost me anything

Item used:

• White wrapping paper (or could use a brown paper grocery bag)
• Markers
• Glue

Positioned the item on the paper to be sure there was adequate space all around, folded up at the bottom then cut both sides into the shape of an Easter Egg. Decorated the front of the egg how you would like, then put the item on the inside lower layer of the wrapping paper and apply glue around the edges, the fold the top layer to the bottom and smooth out the edges.

BUNNY TAILS

This was inspired by "Can't Stop Making Things" project.

http://www.cantstopmakingthings.com/2009/04/bunny-rabbit-tails.html

As I don't have a printer, I made my own card and sewed it to the top of the plastic bag.

Cost to make is under $1

Time to make: 10 minutes

Items used:

• Marshmallows (1 bag makes 3-4 bunny bags, depending on the size of the bag)
• Index card
• Pen
• Crayon
• Marker
• Plastic sandwich bag
• Sewing machine, stapler or tape (to fasten the card to the plastic bag)

POP BOXES EASTER BASKET

Here is a quick and easy way to upcycle two empty soda boxes into an pop artish looking Easter basket that can be recycled once you are done with it. My son is in high school and collects Coca Cola memorabilia, so I will not be decorating this any further, but you could decorate it with Easter wrapping paper, magazine pages or even drawing a child has made. It cost me no money out of pocket and only took 10 minutes to make. Items needed:

• 2 empty cardboard boxes from 12 packs of soda
• Heavy duty scissors (I used kitchen scissors from the Dollar Store)
• Craft Glue
• Hot Glue Gun and glue stick
• Easter Grass

Cut the top off of the box that you want to use as your basket.

Cut the handle from the other box - I made my handle about 4 inches wide and the length is two short sides and the long side of one. Cut two of these (I ended up having to piece together the handle on the inside when I glued it down as the box I used was pretty tore up).

Use craft glue one the outside layer of the handle and glue the inside layer to the outside layer, then trim so they match up.

Use the hot glue gun to glue the handle to the inside of the box on each side.

Fill with Easter Grass and you are done!

Easter Bunny "Carrots"

An Easter treat/basket stuffer without the sugar overload.

I was looking for ideas for things to put into basket that did not have sugar in them and was inspired by the following post. http://www.nofussfabulous.com/?p=4587

Items used:

• 1 quart size Ziplock bag (original project used Wilton disposable icing decorator bags)
• Orange crackers (original project used Goldfish crackers, I used Cheez-It Twisters)
• Green crepe paper (original project used green rick rack) or green rubber band(s) if you want to make just the stem.
• Scissors
• Sewing machine with thread
• Tape or glue

My project makes 4 carrots from one bag. I have enough crackers left that I probably make another 4 carrots.

Sew down the center of the bag on the sewing machine, starting at the bottom and stopping just before you get to the ziplock seal.

Sew a diagonal on each side, but with enough space so you can still fit crackers into the small opening at the top, then stitch another about 1/8th inch away from the original stitches. This is what it will look like after you are done doing that.

Cutting in between the stitches to separate the bags from each other.

This is what the bags will look like once you separate them.

Fill each bag with the crackers at the ziplock seal, two of the bags will be filled from the "top" of the carrot, and two from the "bottom" of the carrot.

To make the carrot tops, cut crepe paper into approx 3 inch strips for the top of the carrot.

Cut strips across the top of strip of crepe paper about 1/4 of an inch part but not all way through, just to about a 1/4 inch from the bottom of the strip.

Attach the crepe paper topper to the "top" of the carrot, you could use tape or glue (I started out using double sided tape but it did not stick well to the crepe paper and resorted to using glue)

If the opening turns out to be to small at top to insert the crackers, as this one was, cut the top open, fill it from the top and secure with a large green rubber band to make it look like the stem of the carrot.

RADIOACTIVE EASTER PEEPS

This was inspired by estherwaayenberg instructable at Instructable.com, http://www.instructables.com/id/Edible-Easter-Nests/

but with a twist after I saw the green peeps at the store, I decided to make mine radioactive.

Ingredients:

1 box of Green Easter Peeps

1 pkg - 11-12oz of Chocolate Chips (I used milk chocolate)

1 cup of Chow Mein Noodles

20-30 Jellybeans

Optional:

1 pkg ready to use green frosting (or you could just use any frosting)

Makes 10 nests

Boil water in the bottom double boiler (or the equivalent), reduce heat and pour the chocolate chips into the top of a double boiler (or the equivalent)

Stir the chocolate until it is completely melted.

Mix in the chow mein noodles throughly.

Spoon the mixture by large spoonful onto a plate or into a cointainer to make 10 nests. (I used the topper to a commercially prepared cake turned upside down.)

This is optional, but to secure the peep and and jellybeans to the nest, I put on a little bit of green frosting.

Put on 1 peep per nest and 2-3 jellybeans per nest. Then put in the fridge until you are ready to serve them.

Here they are in quarantine.

EASTER EGG SEEDS

I read of this project on "Can't Stop Making Things" and knew I just had to make it for my son's Easter Basket.

http://www.cantstopmakingthings.com/2009/04/easter-egg-seeds.html

At the above hyperlink there is a hyperlink to where you can download a label to tape or glue to a box of Tic Tac breath mints. I don't have a printer, so I had to improvise and make my own label out of a bit of an index card with the words "Easter Egg Seed" printed on it and glued that to a bit of paper from Easter advertisements and found a picture of plastic eggs and glued it to the index card portion, then glued the entire piece to a box of orange and red Tic Tacs.

Pink Dragon Egg

This is the same concept as the dragon egg below, except the egg was already pink and I used the glue gun to make the design on the egg then I covered it with glitter pink nail polish that has stars in it and put rose pink

nail polish on top of the glue.

DRAGON EGGS

If you love mythical beasts and medieval memorabilia this is the craft for you!


I made these for my son and will put candy in them for Easter and they can be used as desk or shelf decoration after that. This project was inspired by the link below at Instructables by KaptinScarlet.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-gorgeous-Dragons-Egg/


These are the basic materials, but I also used red paint and glitter fabric paint that was not in the picture.

As I had everything on hand except the eggs, my only cost was the eggs and they had them 30% off at JoAnn fabrics so they only cost 69 cents for 6 eggs; therefore my cost was less than 15 cents per egg. If you had to buy everything from scratch from the Dollar Store and/or a craft store, you could still get by with spending around $5-7 and you would still have a lot of paint, the glue gun and glue sticks when you are done.


The eggs that I used are a little larger than standard Easter Eggs, but you could also get standard ones from the dollar store and would get more eggs.

Each egg takes about 1 glue stick and even though I used 3-4 coats of paint, it did not really take much, so I estimate the cost to be less than 15 cents per egg.

Take the hot glue gun and draw a design on the egg and do the top and bottom sections separately.

At the top on this one I used tear drop oval sort of shapes.

On th bottom I just zig zagged and squiggled and then connected some of those shapes.

I mixed the green and gold paint and painted the bottom of the eggs, then let that dry the paint the top of the eggs.

I put another coat on again doing the same thing (see the bottom of the egg at the side) and although they look old and molted and probably more authentic that way, I didn't feel they were pretty enough for Easter, so I mixed red and gold paint and painted them.

For the final coat I didn't mix the paint, I just swirled it once and then painted the egg for a more mottled appearance.

Here are some of the finished eggs.

The one on the left I left more greenish and only painted with a bit of the green and the gold and I also used a swirl pattern on the top instead of a tear drop oval.

*****NOW FEATURED ON *****

http://tipjunkie.blogspot.com/2009/03/easter-ideas-decor.html

Here are dragon creations made by others at CO+K. It is so fun to see how everyone makes their own unique versions!

I love the colors on this set by Twinkle_Toes - they look very regal.

http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/dragon_easter_eggs/versions/3

This colorful version is by Sasha
http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/dragon_easter_eggs/versions/2