Easter Threading ~ Straw and Pipe-cleaner Rabbit Ears

The Toddler Timers are Easter obsessed and the weather here is atrocious at the moment so we have been up to heaps of Easter Crafts.
This one is super easy and cheap.

What you will need:

Straws (Cut into short lengths ours were approx 2cm)
Pipe-cleaners
Scissors

We started by twisting two pipe-cleaners together to form a long length. You will need to do this with 6 pipe-cleaners forming 3 double length pieces.

Thread away until your heart is content, leaving about 1cm at each end.

Twist the two ends together to form a ring. This will be the headband part used to attach the ears.

Thread the other two lengths of pipe-cleaner again leaving roughly 1cm at each end. This time bend to form more of a tear drop shape. Use the exposed ends to twist and fix on to the headband. Repeat to create the other ear and then you are done.

Master E being a very cute bunny!

Miss M, she was more of a floppy eared bunny, but loved it all the same!



These were quick and easy and required hardly any preparation and clean up. Love a mess free craft for a change! Was great for fine motor too!

Hope you enjoy and Happy Easter!

Easter Fun ~ Print Making

I have been hanging on to some Styrofoam meat trays for ages waiting for the right activity to pop into my head. Finally it did and today we made some Easter Egg Prints using the meat trays.

Here is what you need

Meat trays (or any clean stryofoam tray)
Skewers
Scissors
Paint
Paintbrushes or Rollers
Paper or Card to print onto

First trim the edges off the tray so you have a flat surface to work with. I then drew some egg shapes and cut them out with scissors, I had large trays and could fit two eggs per tray.

Using a skewer draw your design.

The harder you press the deeper the lines and better the print. (Be sure not to press too hard though, as you will end up with a broken tray!)

Once we were happy with the design we painted over the egg shape using thick paint brushes.

Flipped our egg over and pressed it down on to the cardboard. Making sure to press all over the egg to leave the best print.

We found that less paint left clearer prints, more just went a bit messy.

Master E, working on his print collection.

Some of the finished prints.


We were really happy with how these worked and were super easy. We are planning on cutting them out and turning them into Easter Cards soon!

Super Cute Easter Bunny Masks

Easter is fast approaching and the Toddler Timers and their friends are super excited, so there are lots of Easter Crafts happening. Today we made some very cute Easter Bunny Masks.

We started with:

Cardstock
Coloured Paper ~ Cut into shapes to place inside the ears and strips for whiskers.
Thin Elastic
Cotton Balls
Pom Poms
Glue Sticks

I did a fair bit of preparation for this craft. I started by creating a rabbit mask template. I cheated a little bit and found a mask the Toddler Timers had in their dress ups and used this to get the face and eye shapes, then I just added the long ears to make rabbits!

I precut the masks all out as this would take too long and be too difficult for most of the kids. I find using a scalpel much easier than scissors when cutting out inset shapes, like the eyes

I also had hole punched and threaded elastic into the masks. 

The Toddler Timers then choose a colour to paste into the ears and covered their masks with cotton balls.

Miss M carefully adding the colour to her bunny's ears.

Miss A working hard.

Miss A using her fine motor skills to separate the cotton balls ready to paste on to her mask.

Master E stockpiling the cotton balls.

Little Miss S keen to have a go like the big kids.

Miss A deep in thought.

Master S trying his mask on for size.

Miss L hard at work.

The gorgeous Bunny Miss L. Once we had finished adding the cotton balls we added some strips of paper for whiskers and  a Pom Pom for a little Bunny nose.

Master J making a super cute Easter Bunny.

The lovely Bunny Miss O.

The cheeky Bunny Master E.

The gorgeous Bunny Miss G.

Little Miss M having a turn of her big Sister Miss A's mask.

Miss A making a lovely Easter Bunny.

Miss M very proud of her mask.

The children really enjoyed making these and when we were finished there were some very cute little Easter Bunnies hopping around.

Easy Easter Egg Craft!

Looking for a simple messy free Easter Craft? This is by far one of the easiest I have done.

We started with some clear contact, I cut it into large rectangles and then folded it firmly to make a crease in the middle. Open half of the contact up to the creased point and then added pre-cut mosaic squares (tissue paper would also work well). Once the children had enough decorating we shook off any loose squares and covered them over with the remaining contact. An adult then cut them into Egg Shapes and there it is Ta Da! Easy peasy Easter Eggs!

Miss L very carefully choosing where to place her squares and working on some great Fine Motor Skills!

Miss A adding lots of colour.

Folding the contact over and pressing it down firmly. 

So easy even Miss S was keen to give this one a go!

Miss A very proud of her finished Easter Egg.

Master E showing off his handy work.
 

A very proud Miss G!

Crayon Resist Easter Eggs

Master E has a love for Chocolate Eggs, Drawing and Paint. So we decided to combine all of these when creating some Easter Decorations.
Crayon Resist is super easy and you get gorgeous colourful results every time.
To start with I printed off some templates of Easter Eggs.

Master E enjoyed colouring all over the Easter Eggs. He is into spirals, spots and stripes at the moment. These crayola crayons were great as they were very vibrant.

Eggs all ready for painting.

Painting over the crayon using water colour paints. We used paint cakes in a set of 6.

A face on one of the eggs up close.

Master E was having so much fun with this that after we finished the eggs we got out some more paper and did some drawings.
He loved using the white crayon that you couldn't see on the white paper and painting over to reveal his image.

There was lots of wow and amazement at the image appearing.

We did lots and lots of E's, Master E loves EEEE's!

A close up of the E he drew and then revealed with the paint.

When the eggs were dry we cut them out and have strung them up as Easter garland.