Easter egg crafts

Hi everyone!

I hope you had an egg-cellent Easter.
We had a really nice time eating and celebrating with our egg-stended family.
I think I went a bit overboard with this Easter's egg-related crafts:

Inspired by Krokotak's egg carton hens, I made my own chicken and ladybug egg holders.

I also blew out a bunch of eggs, colored them, and then turned them into confetti eggs for our family Easter egg hunt.

Blowing out the eggs:  
I used a safety pin and pricked the top and bottom of the egg.  Then, I used the safety pin to enlarge the bottom hole.  Then, I placed my mouth over the smaller top hole and blew the egg out over a bowl.  Once the egg was emptied, I rinsed the shell out and left it to dry on a paper towel.

Marbleizing eggs with nail polish:
Once the eggs were hollowed out, my sister and I marbleized some of the eggs using Camille Styles' instructions.  (Note:  Her eggs came out beautifully!  As you can see, I had a lot of trouble getting even results. Maybe it's because my nail polish was the cheap 2 dollar kind... or too old?  Or, perhaps my water wasn't the right temperature?  Hrmm...  Did anyone else have trouble making these eggs?)

Designing with masking tape  and dying eggs:
I had much better luck dying the rest of my eggs.  Hubby and I used masking tape to first create designs and then we dyed them.  To create each color, we simply combined 1 cup of boiling water, 20 drops of food coloring, and 2 teaspoons of vinegar in a large mug.  Then, we held our eggs in the dye until they took on the hue that we liked.

Filling the confetti eggs:
Once all the dye dried (and the nail polish smell dissipated... yuck), I filled the hollowed out eggs with  rice krispy treats (poured through a simple funnel made from rolling a piece of paper) and sealed up the holes with masking tape.

The kids had fun finding these special eggs and stomping on them to reveal the rice krispies within.

Although these eggs were fun to make, it was even more fun to see the kids smile each time they found a special "stomping egg."

Happy Monday!

St. Patrick's day photo props

Today our toddler time is holding a St. Patrick's day event for the kids.  Here are two photo props that I crapted for the event:

Both props were made out of old cereal boxes. The kids are supposed to stick their faces through the hole in the left prop and they're supposed to stand underneath the hat on the right.

Please send some good Irish luck our way.  I'm hoping that the kids will use the props and we get some super cute and silly photos.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Make an eggshell mosaic pendant

Don't toss out your eggshells!  Today's craft shows a really unique way to turn them into beautiful pieces of art!

I love vintage micro mosaic jewelry, but being a huge cheap-o, I never allow myself to buy it.  So, yesterday, armed with a bunch of eggshells and milk jug caps (thanks Tita Tina for the stash!), I made my own version of micro mosaic jewelry.  Here are my two finished pendants:

Eggshell Mosaic Pendants

What a lovely piece of crapt

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Make a rattle-drum

Chinese New Year is quickly approaching.  To help get us in the mood, I made this rattle-drum for Baby Chuck using directions I found in a book of crafts. Do you like the black and white?  I chose those two colors to give it a modern look.

DIY Musical Instrument:  Cardboard Rattle-drum

Wanna make your own?  Here's how I did it.

Crapty DIY galaxy light jar

You know how there are TONS and TONS of beautiful craft posts floating around online?

Well, this isn't one of them.

This week's crapt is a DIY galaxy light jar... and it came out looking a tad... crapty.

Don't get me wrong,  making this galaxy light jar would be a really fun activity to do with a young child.  And if you squint your eyes and tilt your head just so... the jar and lights do sort of resemble the night sky.  But, sadly mine just didn't turn out as cool looking as the one from this Design Mom post.  Perhaps I needed a stronger LED light?  Or a jar with a wider mouth?  Hmm....

Anyway, if you love the night sky, or if you have a child that loves staring at the stars and space, maybe you'd like to make one of these? Here's what you'll need:

Materials:
- scissors
- tape
- skewer
- 1 small LED light (I just used our bicycle light)
- jar (with opening large enough to fit your light)
- disposable cake tin <-- crap!

Directions:
(1)  Smooth out your cake tin (I just rubbed the scissor's handles against the metal to flatten out the ridges)

(2)  Cut out a rectangle from your cake tin.  Make sure that it's tall as your jar (it reaches from the bottom all the way to the lid)

(3)  Trace the bottom of your jar onto the cake tin and cut the circle out.

(4)  Use a skewer to punch a bunch of holes into your rectangle and circle.  (You want to see lots of starry light, so you'll need to punch a loooot of holes.)

(5)  Tape your metal circle to the bottom of the jar

(6)  Roll your rectangle into a cylinder.  Tape the cylinder so it keeps its shape.  Squeeze your cylinder into your jar.

Yup.  It's looking crapty already....

(7)  Turn on your LED light and drop it in the jar. (Make sure the light faces the bottom of the jar.)  Screw on the lid.

(8)  Turn off the lights in your room. Orient the jar so that it's resting on the lid.  Enjoy your very own mini galaxy.

Crapty origami boat ornaments and Christmas crackers

This weekend we're hosting a gingerbread house party.  To prepare, I purchased a whole bunch of candy, graham crackers, and icing.   I also crapted a couple of origami boat ornaments.  They were folded from magazine paper.  My little boats were inspired by this origami boat necklace that I won in a recent blog giveaway.  (First time I won one of these giveaways, hooray!)

I also made a bunch of psuedo Christmas crackers out of my ever growing pile of paper towel rolls.  Each guest is going to take one home as a gift.  Inside the cracker they'll find a balloon, a corny Christmas joke, a snowflake, cute band-aids  and a couple of candies.  I think traditional crackers are supposed to pop, but I couldn't find the cracker snaps, so mine will just look cute.  

Hope you have a great weekend.  See you on Monday!

Crapty Fridays- DIY cardboard roll kaleidoscope

Last night I finally succeeded in crapting a cardboard roll kaleidoscope.  Yes!

Please excuse me while I do a happy dance.










My crapting dreams finally came true.  This was actually my fifth attempt at making a kaleidoscope. Yup, I tried four previous iterations and failed miserably.  So here's a big virtual thank you to Genuine Mudpie for her beautifully detailed and photographed set of directions.

Thank you!

DIY Egg carton wreath

Hi everyone.  Did you vote yesterday?  I took Baby Chuck into the voting booth.  He wasn't too sure about the candidates, but he was very excited about pushing the buttons.

As I sit here and watch the results coming out on tv, I thought I would post my adventures crapting this egg carton wreath.  Since this DIY involves crap (egg carton), it technically should be posted on Friday.  But, I was so happy with how it turned out that I just couldn't wait.  (I also took a bunch of photos of the flowers for my blog facelift.  Do you like it?)

I think this is my favorite crapt so far.  It's pretty, cheery, and colorful.  It's also super easy to make.

Materials:
- egg carton (<--crap)
- cereal box
- craft paint
- paintbrushes
- hot glue gun (or possibly any other strong glue)
- scissors

Directions:

Step 1:  Get yourself an egg carton.

Step 2:  Cut the lid up into leaves.

Step 3:  Cut the egg cups up into different flower shapes.

RIP Egg carton- This is all that's left

Step 4: Cut out a ring from a cereal box (I traced a bowl and plate to create the ring)

Step 5:  Paint and let everything dry (I also doodled "hello," cut it out, and painted it)

Step 6:  Glue everything onto the wreath (I glued the leaves first, then the "hello," then the big flowers, and then the small flowers)

Happy Wednesday!

 Let's keep in Contact!

Like kids crafts and activities?  Then you'll definitely want to check out this awesome craft ebook!  It contains 115 pages of unique crafts written by 18 kid craft loving moms!  And, it costs only $12.99!

   

And, you can always find  fun ideas on my Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts!  (Or subscribe to my email mailing list by filling out the pink bar at the top of your screen.)

Happy making, friends!

Crapty Fridays- Day of the Dead candle holders out of baby food jars

Last year hubby, Baby Chuck, and I went to our first Day of the Dead Celebration (click here to see photos).  Feeling inspired by the colors and festive atmosphere of the holiday, I made two skull candle holders out of saved baby food jars.