Easter Crafts for Kids

Easter Crafts for Kids

By Kendra Smoot

Beautiful Basket
Not all Easter baskets are created equal -- most are tacky or lacking charm. These baskets are great candidates for a simple cover up -- use a 1/4 yard of cute fabric and a glue gun to disguise the ugliness. Start with the handle, cut a strip of fabric that is the length of the handle plus 1" and the width x 2.5. Start gluing on the inside of the handle, pull the fabric taught and fold over and glue the other side.

To cover the basket, fold over the fabric by 1" for a clean edge. Secure one end with hot glue and then stretch the fabric around the basket (folded edge is at the top) and secure the end with glue. Pull the fabric taught and attach underneath with hot glue. You will need to fold the fabric over itself a few times to keep the fabric tight.

Easter Crafts for Kids

Let's Go Fly a Kite
Spring winds and warm temperatures practically beg for kite flying. If you don't have one around try making a mini kite with a mini friend.

Help them to cut out diamond shapes in patterned paper. Use ribbon as the tail and yard as the string.

Easter Crafts for Kids

Song Birds
Let kids create a cheery home for feathered friends. We found basic wood birdhouses for $5 at a local craft store. These are painted with a fresh coat of paint and then partially covered with vintage paper and coated in modge podge.

Easter Crafts for Kids

Nest Eggs
Turn a no bake cookie recipe into nests that hold chocolate candy eggs. Little hands will have fun mixing the cookies and shaping in bowls to form nests.

Easter Crafts for Kids

Nest Eggs
Try this simple nest recipe:

Ingredients
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup peanut butter (not all natural)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups cornflakes
1/2 cup sweetened coconut, lightly toasted

Preparation
In a large saucepan, stir together corn syrup, honey and peanut butter. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Add cornflakes and toasted coconut to saucepan and stir until cereal is well coated with peanut butter mixture.

Drop cornflake mixture by heaping teaspoons onto a foil-lined baking sheet. Transfer to refrigerator and let cool until firm, at least 20 minutes. Store in refrigerator in an airtight container.

Easter Crafts for Kids

Hoppy Easter
Try making your own bunny tail and ears for a little one this spring. White plastic grocery bags, a little yarn, and a headband are the only things you'll need.

For the tail:
1. Trim off the handles and bottoms of 4-5 white plastic bags. Cut out
4-5 9" squares, trying to get sections that are mostly all white.
2. Line up the squares and fold accordion style.
3. Use about 20" of white string and tie a knot around the middle of the plastic bags. Round off the edges with scissors. Pull the layers apart to make a fluffy tail. You can use the tails of the yarn as a belt to attach the tail or a safety pin.

For the ears:
1. Trim off the handles and bottoms of 7-8 white plastic bags. Cut out eight 7" squares, trying to get sections that are mostly all white.
2. Line up the squares. Sandwich the plastic between two pieces of printer paper.
3. Fuse the pieces together by running a hot iron (try the rayon setting) overtop for about 15 seconds on each side. Check to make sure that the pieces have fused together; if not, run the iron over it again.
4. Cut 2 ears out of plastic. Attach to the headband with a glue gun.

Easter Crafts for Kids

Fingerprint Cards
Let your kids' fingers do the talking this Easter season. Pull out colorful stamp pads and adorn blank cards with stamped fingerprints. The simple oval shape can be turned into eggs, chicks, flowers, birds, etc with the help of a black pen.

Easter Crafts for Kids

Sock Hop
All you need for this charming stuffed bunny are a few simple items and about 20 minutes.

Easter Crafts for Kids

Sock Hop
To make: Prep a white tube sock by trimming off the ankle a few inches above the heel, and by making a 1 1/2" cut down the toe.

Turn the sock inside out and stitch the ears from the two
pieces of toe. Turn right side out and use embroidery floss to stitch eyes, nose, and a mouth. Tie of ears with white thread. Stuff head and body with batting, tying off a tail with white thread on the heel. Pour in about one 1/2 cup of rice, then stitch to close.

Easter Crafts for Kids

Egg Heads
For older kids egg dying may be so last year. Channel their creativity with this project: gather craft supplies like yarn or fabric remnants and commission egg portraits of family member or friends.

Easter Crafts for Kids