Easter Egg Baskets

My youngest daughter has recently expressed an big interest in making an Easter egg basket to put chocolate eggs in, so we thought we would have a go at making one. As we are keen to re-use and recycle things we have decided to make the egg basket from an old juice carton.

As you can see in the photograph, I have cut the top off a juice carton and used a piece of stiff card for the handle, fixing it to the basket with a paper fastener at the side. The base of the basket can be made from many things like boxes or plastic milk bottles, if you require a bigger basket the juice carton can be cut length ways.

Now for the decoration... here your choice is unlimited, we have decided to liberally smear watered down PVA glue over the basket and stick little pieces of multi coloured tissue paper to it. This will hopefully cover the pictures on the juice carton, if you wanted an older theme this could be decorated with decorative scrap book paper or indeed fabric.

These are the finished baskets, the children have scrunched up little balls of tissue paper to decorate the handle, after the basket is dry you could decorate with little Easter pictures of chicks or bunnies. We have put some spare tissue paper inside the basket to rest the eggs on, but shredded paper would work well too.

Then you just fill with little chocolate eggs and you have very happy children, these little baskets are ideal for the egg hunt.

Egg Shell Candles

The spring equinox falls tonight and we have decided on a craft to celebrate Ostara, although it would also be a good craft for Easter. We really loved the look of the egg shell candles but as you know, I have really small children and I was not keen on melting the wax to make the candles as they both get very enthusiastic at craft time and hot wax could be a bit dangerous for them if it spilt. So we have decided to make egg shell candles in a totally safe way even for the smallest of children.

First, save some egg shells, I tried to break the eggs in a way to leave one side slightly larger to accommodate the candle. I used a knife to try and get the right size and make it as clean a break as possible and no eggs were wasted, we used them all. I then gave them a quick rinse out and left them to dry.

We put the egg into an eggcup to steady it and to stop small fingers from accidentally crushing the delicate shell. If you choose to you can neaten the edges of the shell with some scissors but we decided to leave them.

Next we used colourful candle sand so that we did not have to use hot wax, this is available at craft shops or you could use wax beads as an alternative if you have some. Aim to fill the egg shell about half or two thirds full, my children decided to fill the shell right up.

Next is the cheating bit, everyone who has small children will have lots of these laying around in the back of the candle drawer, well if you are anything like me that is. Half used birthday candles make excellent emergency wicks, just push the candle down into the wax sand until just the wick is visible. You could use wick if you prefer but I was thinking of the simplest thing for small children.

This is what the finished multi coloured candles look like, you can't see the birthday candle at all, I think they look quite beautiful and it was absolutely safe for small children to make.

As you can see they look lovely alight too...