What came first: the chicken, the egg or the Easter bunny?

Who knows? But I do know some very easy crafting ideas start with a simple egg shape, and there’s no better time to try them than right now.

In my little corner of the planet it’s Autumn, it’s school holidays and it’s the Easter break. Daylight savings has finished and while the days are now shorter, the afternoons seem golden and the air is crisp. It’s my favourite time of year.

Holidays bring a break to routine, and can be the perfect time to get creative with your kids. Don’t be daunted… it’s very possible to do that without creating a whole palaver by utilising simple things you already have. Here are some fun and very easy creative ideas that start with, you guessed it, the perfectly simple egg shape…

Egg decorations

You’ll need a sheet of paper for this, ideally sturdy paper, but use whatever you have. If kids have brought paintings home from kinder and they are lying around you can recycle them. Paper that already has colour on it can be a great start to a colourful result.

Draw or trace lots of egg shapes onto the page with a permanent marker. If you’re not a confident drawer find something oval to trace around, or draw one oval shape onto a piece of cardboard and then use it as a template to trace around. Older children can do this themselves.

Once you have lots of egg shapes on the page invite the kids to decorate them further using any colourful art materials you have handy: textas, coloured pencils, crayons and pastels are perfect. This can even be an opportunity for pasting with paper scraps and a glue stick…. basically anything works.

Once the oval shapes have been embellished, cut them out along the outline with scissors.

These bright little eggs can then be used in lots of lovely ways:

• tape a loop of string to each egg to make an individual decoration, or gift tag

• connect a row of eggs to a long piece of string to make an Easter garland

• make Easter wands by taping each egg to a stick from the garden

• make Easter crowns by taping or stapling them to a strip of cardboard long enough to wrap around your child’s head.

• use a whole punch to make them thread-able, offer string, and let the children make unique wearable Easter jewellery

Egg bunnies & chicks

An egg shape also makes an ‘eggs-cellent’ starting point for drawing.

Sometimes children thrive with a starting point on their page rather than a blank page. The same can sometimes be true for adults! Fill a page with egg shapes, drawn with a marker… once again, you can draw them freehand if you’re confident, or cut one from cardboard and trace around it.

Offer the egg-filled page to the children along with some random drawing materials (pencils, crayons, textas) and see what they can be transformed into.

Below are a few very simple Easter themed suggestions, but you’re sure to discover some of your own once you get started. The most important thing is to get started, get creative, and have fun.