Easter art and craft activities 2012 www.alittlecreative.com.au
Welcome!
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Easter is here! And we want to inspire everyone to be A Little Creative over this festive period: at home, on holiday, or wherever you are! We hope you will enjoy our first FREE publication that you can print out or view on your computer. Feel free to share it with as many people as possible - and we would love your feedback too - hopefully this will be the first of many A Little Creative publications :-)
Contents: www.verydebra.com
p3 Polystyrene Cup Easter Bunny Craft p4 Egg blowing and decorating p6 3D egg animals p7 How to draw a bunny rabbit. p8 Play dough eggs p9 Colour-in sheet p10-12 Egg templates
Contributor info: Melinda Saunders – artist, teacher and mother; Melinda loves sharing her artistic passions with her two young children and anyone who enjoys being A Little Creative. She runs classes at her Golden Beach studio and sells art materials and hand-made items online: www.alittlecreative.com.au
Background pattern designed by: Genie Espinoza http://trouvezlelapin.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/easter-patterns.html
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Polystyrene cup
Easter Bunny Here’s a simple bunny to make using a polystyrene or paper cup, a cottonwool ball, and the template below :)
Easter Bunny Template Instructions: • Colour in the parts below using pencils, textas etc. or even collage materials. Most bunnies have pink inside their ear, and a pink nose. Draw a pattern on the basket to make it look as if it is woven, draw easter eggs inside! • Cut out each item and glue onto your upturned cup, also glue a cotton wool ball on the back for the bunny’s tail. Thin slivers of paper can be cut for whiskers. • Leave to dry for a few minutes.
© 2012 www.alittlecreative.com.au
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Egg blowing and decorating Everyone from children to grandparents can blow out the contents of an egg – and just the act of trying it provides hilarious entertainment! I recommend you have a camera handy to capture the various faces that will be pulled as you try to blow an egg – kids will want to try it again and again as the ‘funniness’, ‘grossness’ and ‘challenge’ of this task is very appealing!
Materials needed: eggs – at room temperature piercing implement eg. large needle, compass (I use a ceramicists needle tool) piece of wire bowl soapy water, tea-towel timber skewers, egg carton paint and craft items for decorating spray varnish
Once the egg is blown – the creative possibilities for decorating the eggs are endless: painted designs, making 3D creatures and animals… Of course don’t forget that the eggs are FRAGILE!!! – so consider the age of your child. I have worked with 5 year olds who could successfully blow and decorate the egg – but then unfortunately dropped the egg and smashed it soon after it was finished. To avoid disappointment with young children they can create their masterpieces on fake eggs made of polystyrene or paper-mache.
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© 2012 www.alittlecreative.com.au
Step 1: Pierce your egg
top and bottom (make a slightly larger hole at bottom) Push hard with your piercing implement to break into the shell and then ‘chip’ away at the edge of hole to make it slightly bigger if needed. This can be scary as you imagine the whole egg will crack– but you just need to be bold. * Adults should do this part, not young children for safety reasons.
Step 2: Insert the piece
of wire into the egg and move about to break up the egg membranes and help the liquids to flow out easier – at any stage whilst you are blowing, re-insert the wire to help unclog the contents.
Step 3: Blow! Hold your
egg over a bowl and purse your lips over the top hole and blow as hard as you can! (This may seem disgusting – but as long as you are blowing and not sucking it shouldn’t be a problem.)
Design recommendations:
Step 4: Keep blowing
until the entire contents of the egg have been removed into your discard bowl.
Step 5: Rinse out the
inside of the egg by immersing in soapy water. When there is water inside the egg (you may need to assist the water getting in by poking at the holes with your piece of wire and helping air-bubbles to escape), cover the holes with your fingers and shake egg to wash off the inside surface. Then blow out the water and leave egg to dry out before decorating.
Step 6: Paint and
decorate your egg using your imagination and any craft materials you like! *For easier painting and handling place a skewer through the egg holes. You can poke the skewer into the egg-carton so it will stand up to dry.
- paint the whole egg with a base-colour before adding finer details. Use good quality paints if you want to create a keepsake and coat with varnish when complete. - to hang your egg place a bit of folded wire inside top hole then attach to fishing-line or string, or glue on some ribbon. - go 3D and turn your egg into an animal! (see next page) - use egg shape templates on final pages to sketch your ideas first...
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3D egg animals!
Children will love turning the eggs into animals – use paper, felt and various craft items to add legs, ears, whiskers, etc. to accompany the painted details. PVA glue and/or hot glue guns will probably work best.
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Š 2012 www.alittlecreative.com.au
How to draw a bunny rabbit...
Use an egg shape (as on p.11) to teach young children how to draw a bunny rabbit. You demonstrate on a piece of paper, discussing each part as you draw it.. ask questions and get the child to guess what needs to be drawn and where it should go.. For example: explain to the child that the egg-shape is the body of the rabbit then ask: “what does a bunny rabbit have that we need to draw?” (Help the child to answer: 2 big ears, 2 eyes, a nose, mouth, whiskers...) Ask: “What else does a bunny have? How does he hop around?? (2 large feet, 2 paws) What else does the bunny need?? (A tail!) Also explain HOW you draw each shape. eg. the ears are long, they go up, then turn around at the top and come down again, like a big curve... The eyes are small and round... The whiskers are straight lines, coming out from the nose.. Once you have demonstrated drawing the bunny, let your child draw one themselves! (Of course don’t expect their drawing to look identical to yours - praise them on the parts that you recognise that they’ve drawn, and you can ask them what other parts are... please always remember to embrace your child’s learning and development in art, and there shouldn’t be any ‘right’ or wrong’s, their own ideas and interpretations should always be celebrated!)
Above: a 3 year old’s first drawing of a bunny.
© 2012 www.alittlecreative.com.au
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Play-dough eggs for toddlers...
There’s always a million and one fabulous things to make with playdough! And here’s a simple Easter Egg activity that’s a great hit with toddlers... • Laminate* one of our egg shapes and give your child play-dough to press on top. • The egg can be decorated by using different colours of dough, or using tools and fingers to make indentations. • Encourage your child to experiment making different types of marks and patterns (lines, spots, swirls, zig-zags). • Provide a tub of beads, buttons, pasta, sequins, etc. to ‘pretty’ up the egg even more! • Take a picture of each fabulous egg design to print out later. * (You don’t need to laminate the template, but eventually the paper will become damp and is likely to tear when playdough is pulled off.)
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© 2012 www.alittlecreative.com.au
colour in sheet... Idea: dip your thumb into paint and then print thumb-prints on the page to make Easter eggs!
Š 2012 www.alittlecreative.com.au
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Easter Eggs Explore patterns and vibrant colour combinations to create fabulous Easter Egg designs which can be used for a variety of different creative projects...
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Medium Egg: Use the medium and large egg shapes to design a clolourful patterned egg using collage materials, drawing, painting or even play-dough to decorate.
Š 2012 www.alittlecreative.com.au
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Large Egg:
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Š 2012 www.alittlecreative.com.au