Dollar Tree is a great place to find inexpensive styrofoam pieces for crafting.  I like to stock up on the egg shapes when Easter is here.  I combined several small styrofoam pieces to make an adorable mini wreath for Easter.  This would be cute on a dorm door, in a window, on an office bulletin board, or any other small space that could use some cheer!

Project estimate:

• Foam ring – $1 for 2
• Foam eggs –  $1
• Paint – on hand
• Yarn – on hand
• Ribbon – on hand
• Miniatures – on hand or $1 and up

Total:  $2 and up

Step one:  Paint the foam eggs.

Step two:  Wrap the foam ring with green yarn.

Step three:  Glue the miniatures to the wreath.  I glued beads in a mini basket to look like eggs.

Step four:  Glue the eggs onto ribbon and glue the ribbons to the back of the wreath.

Now you can embellish the wreath with a bow and tiny flowers.  This is a great stash busting project.  Since the wreath is mini-sized you can use up little ribbon scraps and other embellishments you have.  Have fun crafting, creating, and decorating!

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So, all of the Easter stuff is half price at the stores right now, and you’ve been thinking about picking up some tidbits to use as cheap craft supplies.  What should you grab?  If you happen to spy a package of foam Easter eggs, like the ones that Sophie from Sophie’s World found, you can use them to make all kinds of adorable insects!  The possibilites for this project are limited only by your imagination.  Be sure to check out Sophie’s blog to see how she also used this idea to make a beautiful butterfly!  Can’t find eggs?  Small foam balls would also work well.  [how to make foam egg insects]

Project estimate:

• Foam eggs, $1
• Pipe cleaners, on hand or $1
• Glue, on hand
• Markers, on hand
• Googly eyes, on hand or $1

Total:  $1 and up

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It’s not too late to whip up some fun activities for Halloween!  I love this idea from Crystal at Growing a Jeweled Rose, who turned eggshells into fun “smoking” bombs.  Toss them on the sidewalk and watch a cloud rise up!  They would be perfect for a magic show as cover for a disappearing act, don’tcha think?  Your kids will have so much fun with these, and they are so cheap and easy!  [how to make smoking boo bombs]

Project estimate:

• Eggs, on hand or $1 and up
• Marker, on hand
• Baby powder, on hand or $1
• Tissue paper, on hand or $1
• Glue stick, on hand

Total:  Free and up!

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I love clever couples costumes.  Okay, I love Halloween costumes in general, but I am especially fond of seeing couples whose combined ensembles  make me giggle.  (One of these years, my hubby and I are going to go as a gorilla and a banana.  We’ve been talking about it for ages now.)  Over at Craft, designer Meg Allan Coe came up with a pair of costumes that, with a few props, becomes the breakfast of champions.  She shews how to in a great video!   It’s such a great idea that it might even net you additional medals or trophies!   [how to make eggs and bacon costumes]

Project estimate:

• Felt, about $10 and up
• Sewing notions, on hand

Total:  about $10 and up

She also shows how to make a doggie version of the bacon costume!

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This twin pack of jack-o’-lanterns is double the fun! Give these Halloween cuties to your favorite dynamic duo, or award as a door prize for best couples costume at your Halloween party. With a few recycled supplies, some cute cupcake liners and some egg-like goodies, this is a simple and fun craft to make in the few days counting down to Halloween.

This Halloween craft features EOS lip balm spheres, which I like because they aren’t your typical sugary treat, and are a low-priced “nice” gift. I plan on giving this one to my son’s teacher as a thank you. If you don’t want to use EOS spheres, substitute blown eggs, or candy-filled plastic Easter eggs (if you have any in your stash this time of year!).

Supplies: You can get EOS lip balm spheres at your local big box or drug store, or at Amazon.com. If you choose to use blown eggs, follow the instructions at The Artful Parent: How to Make Blown Eggs. Dye your eggs orange. Or, if you have some old plastic Easter eggs on hand, fill them up with candy and use them to make the Jack-o’-Lantern Twins.

Materials:

• Cardboard egg carton, on hand
• Mini cupcake liners (we used two coordinating styles in black and white), $1 and up
• Self-stick craft foam, on hand or $1
• Ribbon, on hand or $1
• Glue (hot glue or tacky glue), on hand
• Scissors, on hand
• 2 orange eggs: I used EOS spheres (medicated tangerine), about $3.38 at Amazon: EOS Tangerine Medicated Lip Balm Sphere

Total: $8 and up
Instructions:

1. Cut two joined cups from an egg carton and trim sides. Make sure you leave the two cups joined together.
2. Glue ribbon handle to either side of the egg carton. Allow glue to dry.
3. Cut down the side of one cupcake liner and cut the bottom off. Glue around the outside of one egg carton cup. Repeat for second egg carton cup.
4. Glue a whole cupcake liner to the outside of each egg carton cup. You should now have a double-layer of cupcake liners on the outside of each egg carton cup.
5. Turn two cupcake liners inside-out, and glue to inside of each egg carton cup.
6. Cut jack-o’-lantern features from self-stick craft foam.
7. Stick facial features on eggs.
8. Put eggs in egg carton cups.

Disclosure: I received this lip balm from the Eos company in order to make crafts with. They hired me to create crafts for them (for their own use), but I was not paid for this post. Some links in the article are Amazon affiliate links.

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Have you ever noticed the ghostly shape of broken eggshells?  Over at The Magic Onions, the entire family got involved in drawing silly, spooky faces on some eggshells rescued from their post-breakfast garbage.  Stringing them together turned them into a cute, no-cost mobile!  Now the only question is… how do you want your eggs?  [how to make an eggshell ghost mobile]

Project estimate:

• Eggshells, on hand
• Marker, on hand
• String, on hand

Total:  Free!

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Here’s the cupcake breakdown: Vanilla bean cupcake, Creme brulee cream filling, Vanilla bean buttercream frosting and Roasted PEEPs marshmallow fondant. It seems like a lot of work, but you can just do the parts you want, and get store-bought for the rest!

Directions

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Make Blown Egg Ornaments By Beth Jurns, Scrimpalicious

These eggshell ornaments are delicate, beautiful, and a lot of fun to make. Who needs glass when nature provides such great materials to work with?

You can let your imagination run wild with this craft–it takes about 20 minutes per egg, and you can decorate them with anything you like and have on hand. You know you’re already going to be buying dozens of eggs for Christmas baking anyway–save the shells for this project.

Materials:
Eggs, on hand
White Glue, on hand
Acrylic paints, $0.75 and up, or on hand
Embroidery floss or ribbon, on hand

Optional:
Felt, various colors, $0.29/sheet or on hand
Glitter, $0.50 and up, or on hand
Stickers, vinyl decals, or foam shapes, $0.25 and up, or on hand

Total: FREE and up

1. Blow the eggs. If you are like my husband and come from a family that never did this at Easter, it’s very simple–get a paring knife or other pointy implement and gently tap a hole at the top and at the bottom of the egg. You’ll want the hole on top to be fairly small and the one on the bottom to be a little larger. If both holes are too small, the egg will explode under pressure when you do the next bit, which involves placing your mouth over one hole, positioning the egg over a bowl to catch the innards, and blowing until there’s nothing left inside.
2. Rinse inside and thoroughly dry the egg. If you don’t give it time to dry inside, it will drip at inopportune moments.

3. At this point, you have the option of filling in the hole at the bottom of the egg. Do not fill in the hole at the top–you’ll need it later!  There are several ways to do this. The simplest is probably to cover it with a bit of white tissue paper coated in glue and let it dry.

4. Once your hole is covered up, you’re ready for the fun part. It’s time to decorate your egg! I decided to go with a less glitzy version, so I painted in a dark brick red, a sage green, and off-white, and skipped the glitter. I also cut out felt stars and glued them to one of my eggs.

(Note: If you’re impatient and doing multiple coats of paint, a hair dryer will set the paint in less than a minute and let you continue on without waiting for ages while it dries. )

I finished off my paint job with a very light wash of gold paint, to add some iridescence.

5. Once you’ve decorated your eggs to your heart’s content and in any way you see fit, it’s time to turn them into hang-able ornaments. I puzzled over this for a while, and finally hit on this method: Take a short length of embroidery floss — about 1 1/2″–and fold it in half. Moisten your fingers and rub the two ends together until they twisted into one slightly pointed strand with a large loop at the other end. Insert it, pointy end first, into the hole at the top of the egg.

Feed the floss, string, or ribbon into the hole until the loop is the size you want it, and then fill in the spaces around it with white/clear-drying glue and prop it up to dry. I did very small loops so that the ornaments could be hung on metal hooks, but it would probably be better to use a longer length of floss and simply hang the eggs from the loop of floss itself once they dry.

If you’re keeping these for yourself, you can pop them right back into their egg carton for easy storage. I decided to package mine as a gift, and tucked them and a little gold tissue into the clear plastic box that my craft glue came in. Happy Christmas, and happy crafting!

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Another cute Easter idea: use baby socks turned inside out to make cute little chick finger puppets. These would be a fun addition to your Easter baskets (they’d be super cute stretched over a candy-filled plastic egg), or just a fun activity for a rainy Spring day. They’d also be cute baby shower decorations, or a good addition to an Easter tree. [project: Better Homes & Gardens]

The project uses feather boa tufts, but you can also use yarn, or how about buying a little yellow furry stuffed animal at the dollar store and cutting it up to use for a cheaper alternative to the boa? For the eyes, you can use googly eyes or buttons if you don’t want to use black beads, or you can embroider them on.

Project Estimate:

• Baby sock, a pair for $1
• Black beads, googly eyes, or buttons, on hand or $1
• Feather boa tufts or alternative, on hand or $1
• Orange pipe cleaners, $1
• Orange felt, on hand or $.25

Total cost: $1 and up

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