They say if you have a carton of eggs, you have a good meal. If you have a carton of eggs, you also have the basis of a variety of kids crafts. The most important thing to remember is that you will need to hard boil the eggs first so they are easier to work with. As a result, kids crafts using eggs can only be temporary art displays as they are perishable.
Humpty Dumpty Eggs
All younger children adore the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme. With a hard-boiled egg and some simple kids crafts they’ll have great fun making their own Humpty.
Begin by making some trousers for the Humpty by drawing a line in felt marker pen one third from the rounded, bottom-end of the egg. Now colour the trousers in. Take two thin strips of felt in the same colour as the trousers and attach firmly to the bottom of the egg with PVA. Humpty now has legs.
Glue two more strips of felt to the side of the egg for arms. Use a further strip around the top third of the egg to make a warm scarf for Humpty.
Finish off with some dots of felt between the scarf and the trousers, to make a line of buttons. Then the kids will need to use a felt marker to draw in Humpty’s facial features.
Humpty is now almost finished. It’s really good fun to add a nice hat for him. The perfect hat is the little cardboard blister in which he sat in his egg box. Paint the ‘hat’ a nice bright colour and add jewels, scraps of fabric to match his outfit or even a jaunty feather.
Now Humpty is complete and kids will have hours of fun pushing poor Humpty from different heights to see when he’ll finally crack!
Decorated Eggs
This is a good opportunity to introduce children to the intricate art of Faberge eggs. There is a long and ancient tradition in kids crafts of decorating eggs and it’s an activity that’s particularly popular at Easter. However, you needn’t wait until then to have fun with these craft ideas.
Start by giving the egg a base colour. If the children are keen to recreate the Faberge look, gold is always a good option.
Older children may want to practise painting fine detail onto their egg with a thin brush and poster paints. Keep kids crafts for younger children much simpler and make it a chance to experiment with things like stickers, mini pom-poms or glitter. Have a go at experimenting with different paint effects. Try applying the paint with a feather or wrapping string soaked in paint around the egg.
The simplest and most traditional way to decorate an egg is with a soft-boiled egg for very young children. In an effort to encourage them to eat their nutritious meal, before the egg is served but cool enough to handle, kids enjoy drawing simple features onto the egg. You’ll be amazed how this mini craft project encourages children to finish their egg. Make sure you use non-toxic pens for safety.
Eggs are not just for eating, or for Easter – they can be used as the base for lots of craft ideas at any time of the year.
