Recycled baby food jar into a friendly puppy.

Some days crafts are about making something nice.  Other days they’re about keeping the kids busy.  If you’re looking for a craft for kids that utilizes things you already have on hand, these baby food jar pals will fit the bill.  I used stuff we already had, including a few things out of the craft box, and they went together pretty quickly.

Related Pages: Animal Crafts, Giraffe Sock Puppet, Owl Crafts for Kids

What you need to make baby food jar pals:

• Empty baby food jar
• Cotton balls
• Colored pom poms
• Construction paper or pipe cleaners for ears
• Googly eyes
• Hot glue

Basic craft supplies for a baby food jar pal.

Have your kid fill the baby food (or other jar) with cotton balls.

We also bunched some colored pom poms in to make “spots” on our doggie.  Turn the jar upside down so that the lid makes a base with a neck.

Glue on googley eyes.

Use pom poms to give your new pal the rest of his face.

Cut out two ears (or make them from pipe cleaners). Glue them to your jar.

Dot made a bunny, while I made a dog.

I added a collar to the dog by gluing a thin strip of construction paper around the lid of the jar and putting a button on the front.

What I Learned the Hard Way: My kid is really uncomfortable with the idea that the top of the jar could become the bottom, so she left the lid at the top for her bunny.

I’ve been holding onto this craft for a few days, and I’ve decided I can hold onto it no longer. It’s my new favorite craft on this site, and I think it would be a perfect thing to do with kids for a Mother’s Day craft (though I think the plant marker garden craft come in a close second on that).

Behold, the Tissue Paper Flower Topiary

I’m actually thinking of making myself a two-tiered one to put in my office. That seems so dorky when I say that out loud though…

What You Need to Make the Tissue Paper Flower Topiary

3 sheets of green tissue paper (ideally in three different shades of green)

3 sheets of pink tissue paper (again ideally in three different shades of pink, or whatever three colors you want)

I think the reason this turned out so well was because I was able to use different shades of green and pink tissue paper. Normal tissue paper packages don’t come so nicely shaded for paper flower crafts, but I swear by a huge package of tissue paper I am able to get at Hobby Lobby for $5 (inconveniently they don’t sell online, but CreateforLess has shades of green at $.89 a package).

A 3 inch styrofoam ball

A small cylinder or cube of floral foam to stick into the clay pot (You could also use play dough)
(I cut a triangle of styrofoam from some appliance packaging we had around the house)

A 3 inch (or so) mini clay plant pot

Plain straight pins

4 straight pins with pretty pearlescent ball on top for the main flowers

A 6″-7″ inch stick from your yard

How to Make the Tissue Paper Flower Topiary

First cut up the green tissue paper into approximately 2 inch squares. They are going to get crumpled up, so don’t worry about being precise or anything.

Start scrunching up the squares into loose little balls. I found it worked best if I rolled them between my hands as if it were clay I was trying to roll into a ball. Even on a tiny ball you will need a surprisingly large number of these, because you want them to be relatively close together.

Next just start pinning them to the styrofoam ball. Don’t put them too close together, because you will want to have room to put in the flowers. You can see in the second photo how close I put them together.

Now cut up your pink tissue paper into squares. For the largest flowers I used about 3 inch squares, the medium about two inch squares and the small about one inch squares. Again, this is approximate, because they are just going to get crumpled up again.

Add the largest flowers first, because they will be the most prominent and need to be placed somewhat evenly around the ball. I thought I was going to add a lot, but found that four was plenty. If you can find straight pins with the pretty pearl tops, use those to attach the largest flowers. If you have a lot of those, you can also use them for your smaller flowers too. I didn’t, so I just used regular straight pins everywhere else.

Then add the smaller flowers in between the green ‘leaves’ where you can still see the styrofoam.

Next, decide what part of the ball you want to be the top, and stuff the stick from your yard into the bottom. I didn’t take a picture of this part, because it’s pretty dang easy to do. Then shove the cylinder or dough into the flower post, and stuff the stick into the midde so that it is standing straight up.

Cover the foam base with green tissue like you did the top ball, but this time, don’t let the styrofoam peek through.

And ta – da, you are done!

Rice Krispie Treat Eggs	Corn Flake Krispie Treat Easter Chicks	Rice Krispie Treat Easter Bunny	Chocolate Easter Rice Krispie Chicks
Spectacular Rice Krispie Treat Eggs	Rice Krispie Treat Spring Butterfly	Easter Rice Krispie Treat Pops	Easter Egg Rice Krispie Treats
Rice Krispie Treat Nests	Rice Krispie Spring Flowers	Rice Krispie Spring Caterpillar	Trix Krispie Treats (Think outside the cereal box!)

You might also want to try our Easter Bunny cupcakes or our easy flower cupcakes.

This is what your final project will look like!

Foam Easter Egg Craft Materials List

5 ½” x 8 ½” foam sheets*

4 ½” x 6” glitter foam sheets

geometric foam stickers

spangles (sequins)

foam glue

scissors

pen

* You also can buy egg foam shape stacks.

You'll need lots of foam sheets and foam stickers.

How to Make this Egg-cellent Easter Craft

Set aside one 5 ½” x 8 ½” foam sheet for every egg you want to make. We made four. Print out the large egg or small egg templates, trace the egg shape on the foam and cut out. For each egg shape, put the side without any pen markings on top.

Once you've cut an egg foam shape, you're ready to decorate!

Egg Style #1: Cut four or five strips in the glitter foam sheets. Vary the width; don’t worry about making them straight or perfect. Glue the strips onto one of the egg shapes. Wait half an hour for the glue to dry. Then turn the egg over and carefully cut off the strip ends.

You can make the strips as wide as you want, in any color combination you want.

You can make the stripes curvy too and use any color combination you want.

Get creative and make curved strips too.

Egg Style #2: You also can decorate egg shapes with spangles, geometric foam stickers and foam letter stickers. We find it easiest to first lay out the foam stickers and spangles without removing the adhesive or adding glue, so we can play around a bit before deciding on a final design.

You can use foam stickers and spangles to decorate more egg shapes.

Now your Egg-cellent Egg Crafts are ready for display on your refrigerator door or window!

For more Creative Hands® projects, visit our website or Facebook fan page.

Most of these Easter printables are suitable for kids age 6+, though there are a handful of them that will either need adult help or are better for older children. All of them are free, though one or two them are on sites in different languages. Yet I made sure that all of them have at least picture instructions so that you don’t need to know Chinese in order to make them!

Related Pages: Easter Mad Libs, Easter Rice Krispie Treats, Easter Finger Puppets Craft

Find all our Woo! Jr. Easter Kids Activities right here!

As always, leave us a note in the comments to let us know what you use our templates for – if you blog about it we would love to feature your projects, too!

Related Pages: Easter Coloring Pages, Printable Easter Crafts, Easter Handprint Crafts

Printable Easter Shapes	Easter Eggs Template	Easter Bunny Templates
Spring Chick Template	Spring Tulip Template	Easter Chick Template
Easter Bunny Shape	Easter Carrot Template	Easter Basket Template
Easter Bow Template	Easter Cross Template	Easter Lamb Template

Check out all of our Easter kids activities while you are here!

I’ve tried to find Cricut craft projects that don’t require a big investment in more cartridges, though some do, of course. Several of them offer free template downloads or instructions on how to create the projects on your own. Also, some of these patterns are just as easily made on other paper cutting craft tools, such as the Gypsy and Cuttlebug.

Related Pages: Printable Box Templates, Printable Vintage Postcards, Printable Dragon Paper Craft

Cricut Paper Crafts

Cricut Paper Purse	Cricut Robot Papercraft	Pretty Cricut Cupcake Wrappers	Cricut Paper Flowers Craft

Halloween Cricut Crafts

Cricut Halloween Decorations	Cricut Paper Pumpkins	Decorated Halloween Candles	Halloween Door Hangers

Thanksgiving Cricut Crafts

Cricut Thanksgiving Turkey Craft	Cricut Thanksgiving Pie Favor Boxes	Cricut Thanksgiving Place Cards	Thanksgiving Paper Banners

Christmas Cricut Crafts

Paper Cutting Christmas Ornaments	Cricut Glitter Snowflakes	Christmas Mouse Candy Cane Holders	Cricut Paper Christmas Scene

Valentines Day Cricut Crafts

Cricut Valentine Treat Bag Toppers	Cricut Strawberry Valentine Treats	Cricut Valentine Cards	Cricut Valentines Day Banner

Easter Cricut Crafts

Cricut Spring Flower Easter Treats	Cricut Easter Bunny Basket	Cricut Easter Egg Holder	Cricut Easter Place Cards

Check out more paper cutting crafts while you are here, too!

Fun Bunny Cupcake Idea

Related Pages: Easter Mad Libs, Printable Easter Crafts, Easter Kids Poems, Easter Coloring Pages

What you Need to Make Bunny Cupcakes

Pre-made cupcakes frosted with white frosting

Bunny gummy candies

Large white marshmallows

Small pastel colored marshmallows

Chocolate syrup, mini chocolate chips, or other tiny round candies /sprinkles for the bunny eyes

How to Make Bunny Cupcakes

Honestly, decorating with gummy bunnies is pretty self-explanatory. I put four onto the cupcake and then added an extra dot of white frosting in the middle.

Make Bunny Cupcakes

For the bunny face cupcake, I cut large white marshmallows in half, then in half again so that it was cut in quarters. (You can cut marshmallows with a butter knife or plastic knife, don’t let the big steak knife fool you!)

Place two of the marshmallow quarters onto the cupcake, sticky side down. Place a small pink marshmallow onto the bottom of the bunny face for the nose. I then took a toothpick and dabbed a tiny bit of chocolate syrup on the end, and placed the dots for the bunny eyes. This was my improvisation because I didn’t have any sprinkles or chocolate mini morsels laying around (what kind of cook am I that doesn’t have mini morsels in her kitchen?!).

(Check out more Easter cupcakes at Hoosier Homemade!)

Easter Pipe Cleaner Finger Puppets

When I had to idea to create some finger puppets out of pipe cleaners, little did I realize what creativity I would unleash in my children. 3 packages of pipe cleaners later, I have enough different finger puppet ideas for probably 10 more posts! I had no idea these would be such easy crafts for kids.

Pipe cleaners are extremely forgiving and deceptively easy to work with. Anything you ‘mess up’ while bending them is fixable. And by using a hot glue gun, you are pretty much unlimited in how you can attach eyes, limbs, and embellishments.

Check out our Halloween Finger Puppets Craft, too!

What you Need to Make Easter Finger Puppets

Pipe cleaners of various colors

Mini pom poms of various colors and sizes (you can substitute cotton balls sometimes)

Googly eyes

Hot glue gun

Wire cutters

(Our local Dollar Store had great cheap coordinating sets of pipe cleaners with matching pom poms)

How to Make Easter Finger Puppets

Once you see the components of each of these pipe cleaner finger puppets, assembly is pretty self-explanatory. But here’s the key “puppet base” that they are all made from:

Finger Puppet Base

Step 1 is to take the pipe cleaner and wrap it around your finger. I like to do it rather tightly, because once it is off of your finger, it is easier to stretch it out than it is to tighten it up.

Important: Notice that the top of the pipe cleaner coils down to a smaller circle. Do this so that it is easier to glue the pom pom head on top, and to lessen the possibility that you will get the hot glue on your fingers (which, if it hasn’t happened to you yet, pray that it doesn’t. OMG.)

Here are the pieces of each of the pipe cleaner finger puppets shown above. I was skeptical whether the hot glue would work on some of these pieces, but it worked perfectly. Just put a tiny dab of glue onto the wire end of the pipe cleaner and stick it straight down into the pom pom – it will stick after just a second or two of holding it in place.

Easter Bunny Pipe Cleaner Finger Puppet

Easter Bunny Finger Puppet

After gluing the white head onto the pipe cleaner body, stick a dab of glue onto both wire ends on one of the bent pipe cleaner ears. Stick them firmly into the pom pom while squeezing the ends together.

Glue two tiny white pom poms on the face as a base to stick the googly eyes. This is really optional, and you can see on the kitten finger puppet below that you can also just glue the googly eyes directly onto the pom pom head.

Then glue on the pink nose and the medium sized pink pom pom for the tail.

Easter Chick Pipe Cleaner Finger Puppet

Easter Chick Finger Puppet

After gluing the white head onto the pipe cleaner body, clip a tiny piece of orange pipe cleaner and bend it into a V shape, and glue it onto the middle of the face. Glue the two yellow mini pom poms right above the beak to make a base for the googly eyes, then glue them on top of them. Take about a 4 inch piece of extra yellow pipe cleaner and bend it into the wing shape as shown. You don’t even need to glue these in, just slip them onto the body in between the coils and they will stay put.

Spring Kitten Pipe Cleaner Finger Puppet

Spring Kitten Finger Puppet

After gluing the white head onto the pipe cleaner body, clip two small pieces of white pipe cleaner (about 3/4″ long) and bend them into a V. Glue them onto the top of the head. I skipped the extra tiny pom pom eye base on this one, wanting to go for a more “Hello Kitty” look. You only need one tiny pink pom pom for the nose, but here’s a little tip: if you don’t have a tiny pom pom to use, you can clip a tiny piece of pink pipe cleaner (less than 1/4″ long) and glue it onto the face instead. The tail is attached by bending it onto the bottom coil on the back of the kitten’s pipe cleaner body.

Bluebird Pipe Cleaner Finger Puppet

Spring Bluebird Finger Puppet

To make this variance on the Easter chick, I omitted the mini pom pom base for the eyes, and added a little tuft of feathers on the top of the head the same way I did the kitten’s ears (but only added one and put it on lengthwise instead of sideways). The wings are also a slightly simpler version of the yellow wings, and might be easier for smaller children to bend on their own.

But today was not one of those days. *grin*

Today I was in a rush and I was trying to figure out a way to make easy bunny cupcakes. I did, and they are quite cute… but then I looked at the almost-full bag of colored marshmallows and the last few undecorated cupcakes and I was inspired.

So viola – the easiest flower cupcakes on the planet:

Easter Dessert Flower Cupcakes

How to Make the Easiest Flower Cupcakes Ever

Quite honestly, these are so easy they are almost self-explanatory.

Bake cupcakes from a mix.

Frost them with store bought frosting.

Pop colored marshmallows on top.

Done.

For the flower leaves and the pointed yellow petals, all I did was cut the cupcakes in half diagonally like this:

Cut marshmallows

Even a little kid could cut the marshmallows, because you could use a plastic knife to do it.

By the way – my kids devoured them so fast I didn’t get to try one. So if you make these Easter cupcakes, please let me know how they are!