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Leftovers

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When Little Crafter and I decide on a fun art project we want to do, I have no problem buying special supplies to get the job done {within reason, of course!}.  But after awhile, I find myself thinking as I hand over my cash to yet another Michael’s associate, “What about all the leftovers we already have at home?”  Rarely does a craft project take all of the supplies you have to purchase, and so, over time my storage bins have filled to the brim with leftovers of all kinds: pom-poms, googly eyes, tissue paper scraps, pipe cleaners, clothespins, beads, elastic, feathers, foam shapes…you name it, we probably have it.  So, today, in honor of the approaching Earth Day {and in the interest of my wallet} I decided to come up with some things we could make without leaving the house or purchasing anything new.  We ended up with 3 simple but fun Easter crafts.  Here’s what we did:

HANDPRINT LILY BOUQUET
Materials:
– white construction paper or cardstock
– green pipe cleaners, 1 per flower
– yellow pipe cleaners, 1 for every 2 flowers
– pencil with eraser
– scissors
– glue or other adhesive
– vase {optional}
Ever since I was a Stampin’ Up demonstrator, I always have cardstock on hand, and the pipe cleaners were left over from the St. Patty’s Day Rainbow in a Pot of Gold project we did.  I temporarily displaced a few faux Gerber Daisies from their home so I could humor Noah, who was pretty insistent that they needed to be in a vase…
STEP 1: Trace cute child’s adorable handprint onto white paper using a pencil.  Have him/her spread the fingers as wide as possible.
STEP 2: Cut out handprints; we did three.  Erase all pencil marks, if possible, and set handprints aside.
STEP 3: Cut yellow pipe cleaner in half.  Wrap one end of green pipe cleaner around center of one half to form a “y”.
STEP 4:  Wrap handprint around green pipecleaner just underneath of where yellow and green pipecleaners join.  Secure with adhesive…I used glue dots.
STEP 5: Curl fingers down to resemble lily petals and curl yellow pipecleaner to resemble stamen.

STEP 6: Arrange and display.

LC enjoyed watching his handprints turn into flowers and it was a quick, easy way to get an Easter decoration in place for Passion Week.

TISSUE PAPER CROSS
Materials:
– cardstock (or a scrap of cardboard works too)
– scissors, pencil
– glue
– scraps of colored tissue paper in any and every color cut into small squares
Again, we always have cardstock, and the tissue paper was left from our St. Patty’s Day Tissue Paper Rainbow.
STEP 1: Draw or trace cross shape onto cardstock and cut out.
STEP 2: Scrunch up tissue paper squares into little balls and glue all over.  You can use your hands, like Noah did, or the eraser end of a pencil.

That’s pretty much all there is to it.  Even a two year old can do this one relatively “all by his self.”

HANDPRINT LAMB EASTER CARD
Materials:
– cardstock: white, blue, and green
– black fingerpaint or other washable kids’ paint
– cottonballs
– scissors
– glue
– stamps/ink pads {optional}
The fingerpaint was left from when I did some art using LC’s hand and foot prints for the basement playroom.  The cottonballs were leftovers from our Paper Plate Lamb.
This is our adapatation of my friend Erin’s super cute idea, which I warned you was in LC’s and my future this week!  We decided to make the lambs just like she did, but turn them into Easter cards for LC’s grandparents and great-grandparents.  For full instructions on the project, see my Sheep & Seders post.  His hand is getting so big that it almost didn’t fit well on the card front, but we managed to get it on there with a Happy Easter stamp.  Now I’m going to show pictures, so Grammy and Grandma, STOP READING!  You’ll see them soon enough when you get yours. 🙂 I promise not to say anything else interesting for the rest of the post or put any pictures of the cutie-pie…you won’t miss a thing!
Here’s Erin’s original again, in case you missed it:

And here’s our take on it….

Ready?

Grammy and Grandma, I mean it…no peeking!

Here it comes…

Ta-Da!  One little fluffy sheep wishing you a Happy Easter from our house to yours!

Well, there you have it…3 fun Easter crafts without leaving the house or spending a penny.  Enjoy!
As promised, I have nothing else interesting to say. 😉 

I shared this idea lots of places that are featured on my sidebar, and also here:
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Comments

  3. Amanda Joy says

    We did hand and footprint flowers for Mother’s Day two years ago. The grandma’s all still have them, but I think it is time to revist the idea with those lilies.

    Reply

  4. Carmella says

    The hand print Lilies are so sweet! I don’t have any pipe-cleaners…not even as left-overs but I will have to get some to make these with my little guy tomorrow! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply

  5. Erin says

    Funny you brought up the lillies-i’m doing that craft with my kids at work! Glad to see it’s as doable as I had hoped…and yay for Noah’s sheep-amazing how much more accurate the image is when they are older 😉

    Reply

  9. SJ @ Homemaker On A Dime says

    You’ve got fun projects and my girls will love to do the sheep project. Thank you so much for sharing this with us at the Creative Bloggers’ Party & Hop 🙂 Hope you’ll join us again this Sunday starting at 5 pm PST.

    Reply

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