Minion Eggs

So, I got ridiculously into Easter this year. So much so that I went completely overboard when it came to buying Eastery paraphernalia for the house, Easter gifts for the children's Easter baskets, Easter eggs/chocolate (even though I was adamant the children would NOT be getting eggs from us this year) and Easter egg hunt-related things. At the last count, I think I bought a total of 60 plastic eggs and, looking back on this now in hindsight, this was a completely ridiculous overestimation of the number I needed, particularly considering the fact we weren't intending on hosting an Easter egg hunt with lots of children and our youngest child wasn't old enough to 'hunt' eggs or eat/enjoy the treasures inside. So, let me repeat - 60, yes that's 60 plastic eggs for a one-person treasure hunt. Major miscalculation. Big. Fat. Oops. Oh well. At least they're both cheap, re-usable and useful for a variety of purposes. I do love these little plastic eggs - they're so bright and colourful and I'll be sure to use them regularly in our play and learning.

We had a particularly wet bank holiday weekend (aren't they all?!) so I searched Pinterest for a craft activity we could do that wouldn't involve a trip to the shops to buy craft supplies and I stumbled upon this.

These are so quick and easy to make and a must for any Minion/Despicable Me fan. All you need to make them is black tape, googly eyes, yellow and blue plastic eggs and a sharpie/thin permanent marker.

Start by pushing together half a yellow egg with half a blue egg (it works best if the blue part is the smaller part). Then cut a stripe of tape in half lengthways and carefully wind it halfway up on the yellow part of the egg. Stick googly eyes onto the tape (we used self-adhesive eyes to make it easer). Then add detail (mouths, dungarees, hair, eyebrows etc.) with the sharpie. You could find pictures of various Minions to draw inspiration from or just create your own as we did.

Playdough Easter eggs

So I've got a little behind in terms of blogging lately. Firstly, because I've been faaaaaaar too busy enjoying the Easter holidays with the children (and rightly so!) and secondly, because I've had some pretty terrible news over the last couple of weeks so I've either preoccupied or not in the right frame of mind to blog. Anyway, enough about that. I thought I'd share with you another of our Easter activities (yes, I know Easter's happened, it's all over, despite there still being a mountain of leftover Easter eggs yet to be eaten). It might just give you an idea of something you could do NEXT year though - I know we'll be doing this one again, that's for sure.

We made these playdough Easter eggs using playdough (obviously), sequins and beads, buttons, coloured matchsticks, lollipop sticks and pipe cleaners. You could use anything really that will stick into or make an indentation in the playdough - bits of pasta would even work.

Despite us only using a few items, Tommy managed to create some really interesting, creative and varied designs.

 

Potato Masher Easter Egg Printing

I hope everyone's been enjoying the almost summer-like weather we've been having recently. We have definitely been making the most of it! Whilst it's been sunny and warm, we've snapped up the opportunity to do some outdoor crafting. One of the activities we did recently was printing Easter eggs using a potato masher. This was so easy, quick and, most important of all, FUN!

To make our prints, we used a potato masher (it's important to find the plastic variety, which we didn't find as easy as I had hoped!), some ready-mixed paint and some white card. I tend to make things as easy as possible for myself in terms of setting up/clearing away with craft activities - I find this is particularly important when you have a younger child like we do and they're likely to need feeding/cuddling/changing etc. half way through or just as you finish. With this in mind, I often use cheap paper plates as paint palettes (it saves on the washing up!). I squirted a small splash of different-coloured paint onto the paper plates and made sure the colours overlapped a little. I also taped the card down to a tablecover, so they wouldn't blow away mid activity (yes, this has happened to us before!).

Tommy then got to work, dipping the potato masher in the paint and pressing it onto the paper and lifting it off carefully. He really loved this activity, so much so I had to go and seek out some more
paper, so that he could continue!

The technique is really effective and would make lovely simple Easter cards. Alternatively, individual eggs could be cut out to make decorations.