Egg carton flowers for Mother's Day

My little spring posy is based on the roses I made a couple of weeks ago. Egg cartons are great for flowers, and I was thinking this simple arrangement might come in handy with Mother's Day around the corner?

So, if you fancy making these flowers, you will need:
Egg cartons
Pipe cleaners (preferably yellow and green)
Coloured tissue paper
Paint
Glue
Lump of old modelling clay
Yogurt pot

Cut out a few egg cups from the carton for the daffodils, and keep the edges nice and wavy - makes it look more like petals.

Cut some middle cones out too for the crocus/bluebell shaped flower (seems to be a sort of cross between the two!) - use the corners for the petal tips and join by drawing a triangle on each side, like the picture above…

Paint them purple and the daffs a sunny yellow.

Pierce a hole through the bottom of the bells and the middle of the daffs (Best done by an adult - use nail scissors or similar - keep them closed, press down and twist carefully from side to side) Push a piece of pipe cleaner through (roughly 10cm/4in.) Bend it over to hold in place - try to keep the pipe cleaner nice and flat inside the daffs (so it's easier to stick the tissue paper centres here later).

With the bells, we used a longer piece of yellow pipe cleaner and pulled more of it through for the flower stamen, and then folded the pointy end over.

To finish off the daffs, fold a piece of orange or yellow tissue paper (about 10x10cm/4x4in.) until it's a 2cm/3/4in. wide strip - you don't want it sitting too high above the edge of the egg cup - then roll up tightly.

Let them unfurl a bit before gluing the end edge down. Brush plenty of glue inside the egg cups (and over the pipe cleaner middle) and stick the tissue paper centres in place.

For the daisies, cut a 1cm/1/2in. thin strip of white paper and snip into 6cm/21/2in. pieces. Fold them in half and round off the ends.

Open up and use the middle fold to arrange three evenly on top of each other, so it looks daisy-like.

Glue together and when dry, carefully make a hole (with nail scissors as before, but put a piece of modelling clay behind the flower centre, so you have something to push against). Make it big enough for a pipe cleaner.

Wind the pipe clearner around a few times for a fuller centre.

We cut some long leaves out of tissue paper and stuck them on too - the easiest way to do this is to wrap them around the stalks.

Arrange your blooms in a piece of old plasticine (modelling clay) - one of those mashed up, multi-coloured lumps…(make sure you warm it up a bit first, so the stalks go in)

Cut a strip of wrapping paper to decorate your pot - make sure it goes round with plenty to spare (about 1 and a half times), then cut into about 3 or 4 pieces - so much easier to glue on neatly like this! Overlap each piece.
You could tie a ribbon around instead.

Pop in your flowers.

Easter Surprise! Easy egg box craft

I'm becoming a serious rubbish hoarder. I've a drawer stuffed full of loo roll middles and swiped party napkins, and one of the work surface walls is made of empty cereal and egg boxes with yogurt pot turrets.. But this wall is coming down slowly, because with Easter on its way, egg boxes are the rubbish of choice at the moment! They're so handy for all kinds of craft, and there are some brilliant ideas around. If you haven't already, do take a look at these 10 egg carton crafts on Red Ted Art's blog. We had a go at some of them, then got on a bit of a roll, and came up with our own idea.
An Easter egg shaped box..

little egg shaped box

They're easy to make; a few fiddly bits that need grown up help, but plenty for the kids to do.

You'll need an egg carton, tin foil, craft glue, leftover braid or coloured paper strips, and felt/sequin decorations, or any small, colourful bits.

Cut out the 6 egg holders. I usually do this with small nail scissors, or I cut them out roughly and let my 5 year old do it - but this can mean we end up with teeny tiny cups!

Scrunch up a small piece of tin foil, but not too tight - these are going to form the rounded top of your egg. Glue to the bottom of a cup, and mould until you're happy with the shape.

Then just cut out or rip pieces of tin foil, big enough to cover each part of your egg separately, and wrap tightly, folding the extra foil underneath.

I glued lovely bits of braid around the edge of the top part of our little egg box, while my daughter did some decorating. The braid needs to hang just below the edge, so it fits over the bottom part and covers the join. Well, kind of covers the join!  The sticking takes a little patience - paper clips help so it dries in place, but you could speed things up by using coloured paper strips instead of the braid.

Coloured foil would be great for a bit of variety, but we didn't have any...apart from what was on my stockpile of Easter chocolate..

creme egg eaten in the interests of craft...

There weren't many small yellow pompoms either, so we ended up making exotic chicks! Might need their feathers trimmed so I can fit in a mini egg or two..

exotic Easter chicks

Linking up with Red Ted Art's Kids Get Crafty 

and For the Kids Friday over at Sun Scholars.