Adorable Egg Carton Carrot Patch
By: Amanda Formaro
Difficulty: Very Easy
Age: 5 and up
This Easter craft or Spring craft uses recyclable egg cartons and makes an adorable table decoration. Kids will love creating their carrot patch with beads, paint and craft pom poms and putting it on display. Perfect for home or a classroom project.
What you'll need:
- Empty cardboard egg carton, lid removed, cut in half
- Acrylic or poster paints: brown and green
- 20 orange tri-beads
- Seven or eight green tiny chenille stems or pipe cleaners (these are smaller than regular ones)
- Two pink pom-poms
- Two small white craft foam circles for cheeks
- One tiny yellow craft foam circle for nose
- Two white craft foam rabbit ears, or cut your own from a sheet of foam
- Two small wiggle eyes
- Pastel colored craft foam flower
- Medium yellow craft foam circle, for center of flower
- White craft glue (Tacky Glue)
- Pink Easter grass (optional)
How to make it:
- Remove the lid from your 12-cup-cardboard egg carton. Cut the egg carton in half so that you have six egg cups per section. Save the other for another craft.
- Place the egg carton upside down on the work surface and paint the egg carton green. Paint the tops of the egg cups brown to resemble dirt mounds.
- When paint is dry, parents should use a pencil or scissors to poke a small hole in the top of each egg cup.
- Cut tiny chenille stems into three equal pieces. If you have seven chenille stems you should end up with 21 pieces.
- Thread two tri-beads onto the end of a chenille stem. Insert another chenille stem into those same two beads, and then insert the third stem as well so that all three chenille stems are threaded together through the two beads. If getting the third stem through the beads is too difficult, stick with two stems.
- Position the beads so that there is about one inch of stem at one end. Insert that end through the hole in the top of the egg cup.
- Turn the egg carton over and bend the three chenille stem ends down to anchor them in place.
- Turn the egg carton back over. Be sure that the tri-beads are pushed down so they are touching the base of the egg cup, then bend the long ends of the chenille stems downward to resemble carrot greens. Repeat steps five through eight for each egg cup until you have six carrots growing from your garden.
- Glue a pom-pom in between two egg cups, then glue the second pom-pom on top of the first one.
- Glue on the eyes, nose, cheeks and ears.
- Glue the flower to the front of the egg carton.
- Make an extra carrot by threading the remaining tri-beads onto two chenille stems. Bend the short ends of the stem to hold the beads on, and bend the long ends over to form a loop for the carrot greens.
- Glue the extra carrot to the front of the garden.
- You can place this on a bed of Easter grass to make a cute table decoration.
Tips:
- In the Spring you can often find “kits” that contain pom-poms, foam ears, feet, cheeks, noses and wiggle eyes all together in one package. Check with your local craft store.
- You may substitute small and mini pom-poms for the cheeks, nose and even the eyes if you have these handy. Ears can be cut from felt sheets.
- Younger children may have difficulty inserting the third chenille stem through the beads as mentioned in step five, while older children will be able to manipulate this. Using two chenille stems is perfectly fine, simply fold the “carrot greens” down into a loop to make them look fuller.
- If you are pressed for time or this is a classroom project, you can cut the chenille stems ahead of time and you may also want to paint the egg cartons too.
RELATED CRAFTS:
Spring Chick Surprise
Cotton Ball Easter Chicks
Easter Chick Centerpiece
RELATED LINKS:
Easter Homepage
Easter Crafts
Easter Egg Decorating Ideas
