Video - Fancy Easter Egg How-To's

If you're looking to make your naturally dyed Easter eggs a bit fancier, this video has some awesome tips for making sparkly eggs, decoupaged eggs, and more - all using natural or recycled ingredients. If your kids are a little older, they'll love these fun advanced Easter egg decorating tips. Check out these fun and easy suggestions, and make your Easter eggs extra special this year!

Decorate Eco Easter Eggs {kids + eco friendly craft}
This easter, be kind to the earth by embellishing eggs and easter baskets the natural way using environmentally friendly items.

Eco-Friendly Craft: How to Make Felted Easter Eggs

What’s better than a brightly colored Easter Egg? Why a soft and fuzzy one of course! Felted Easter eggs are fun and easy to make. And you don’t have to worry about a felted egg rotting or going to waste. They’re bright, beautiful and easy to make. Here’s how:

Materials Needed:

Different colored roving (Photo credit: Rakka)

• Styrofoam eggs – you can find these at your local craft store.
• Wool roving – you can make your own wool roving or you can purchase prepared wool at your local fabric store. Choose the colors you desire for your eggs. Pastels are nice. 
• Fine point marker for drawing your design
• Felting needles – can be found at your local craft store.

Instructions:

Step One: Wrap a piece of felting around a foam egg. Gently hold the egg in one hand while you poke the felting with your needle. The goal is to get the felting to adhere to the foam egg. Gently poke the felting all around the egg. There is a small learning curve here. You’ll eventually learn how much pressure is required to adhere the wool to the egg. Once the piece of wool is attached move on and add another piece of felt. You can switch colors or color your entire egg the same and add other colors on top.

Felting eggs (Photo credit: Linda (Pane, amore e creatività))

Step Two: Using a fine point marker, draw a design on your egg. You might want to plan it out on paper first. For example, you might decide to create a circle of smaller triangles around the middle of your egg. Draw those on so you place your felt pieces on your egg accordingly.

Step Three: Cut the wool pieces out of your roving. For example, if you’re adding triangles to your egg you’d cut out the triangles from a new piece of roving. Using your felting needle poke the new pieces of wool into the egg until they’re attached. Once you’re happy with your design you can start a new egg.

Displaying Your Felted Eggs

You have several options to display your felted eggs. You might choose to display them in a glass bowl or basket. You might attach an eye-screw to the top of the egg and hang them. You can add ribbons to the top too.

Making felted eggs is easy. It’s even a craft you can do with your children. Make sure to show them how to attach the wool to the foam egg carefully. You don’t want them to jab the needle through the foam. Consider making felted eggs a part of your Easter tradition. Each year you and your family can add a few eggs to your collection. You might also give them away as gifts, and they make a fun party favor.

How to Have a Zero-Waste Easter Party

In preparation for Easter, we're taking a short break from our Going Organic series - but don't worry - we'll be back next week to wrap up!

This week we'll be sharing some fun and eco-friendly ways to celebrate the holiday in ways that are healthy for both you and the planet. Easter is a time of celebration and renewal. It’s also a great time to embrace earth-friendly practices. If you’re throwing an Easter party, you can make it a green one by having a zero waste party. Here’s how.

#1.  Use E-Vites. Invitations can now be sent via email. There are some extremely useful programs you can use online. These programs allow you to send email invites quickly and easily. They also keep track of who RSVP’d and many offer a message board so people can ask questions about the party. Electronic invitations mean you don’t have to use any paper or ink. They’re 100% electronic. A couple of the more popular ones are Evite.com, and Eventbrite.com. And if you have people you want to invite and they don’t use email, consider giving them a phone call.

Please Recycle Label (Photo credits: www.recyclereminders.com)

#2. Use  Recycled or Reusable Party Ware. Plates, napkins, glasses and all party decorations can be made from recycled materials. You can also use your own every day real or reusable dishes, or if you’re going to have a large party, consider renting dishes. You can also buy compostable party ware, like plates and cups made from corn.

#3.  Make Your Own Decorations. Easter time is spring time and it’s a great opportunity to decorate naturally. That means you don’t have to buy pre-made decorations. Consider using naturally dyed eggs, real grass, and twig branch baskets for decorations. Cut flowers for a spring touch and place them in vases. If you want to create Easter grass for baskets or decorations consider shredding magazines or using vegetable dye on papers in your recycled bin and then shredding them. Beet juice makes a beautiful natural pink color! 

#4.  Make It A Pot-Luck. Instead of cooking everything yourself or getting takeout, consider asking attendees to contribute a dish to the party. It means there’s less work for you and everyone feels as if they’ve contributed to the festivities. Let them know you’re having a zero waste party so they can be sure to bring food in recyclable or reusable containers.

#5. Compost Leftovers. Composting is a great way to make use of leftovers and you can use the finished compost to help indoor and outdoor plants thrive - use it in your sustainable garden to grow great food organically!

Coloring Easter eggs. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

#6.  Play Games. Games make a party fun. Easter egg hunts with real eggs instead of plastic ones are a zero waste game. The kids will love helping dye them the day before! Or have the eggs already boiled and cooled, and make the dyeing part of the party! Charades and scavenger hunts also have zero waste.

#7. Make Natural, Earth Friendly, Crafts. In addition to using games to keep children occupied consider having an earth friendly craft for kids to do. One example might be for children to decorate a tin. You can have seedlings, potting soil and paint on hand. They can decorate the can, choose their plant and take it home. It’s a zero waste craft and a nice goodie to take home from the party. Felted Easter eggs are also a fun craft for kids that they can take home with them - check back for Wednesday's post for how-tos.

#8.  Recycle.  Be sure to recycle anything that cannot be reused. For example, if you purchase soda or juice for the party you can recycle the containers. Or you can use them to create compost scoops, bird feeders, or planters.

Easter is a great time to be environmentally conscious. When you throw a zero waste party you’re not only doing something nice for the planet you’re also getting others involved in the cause. You’re setting a good example for your own family and others. If everyone does their small part it makes a huge difference - plus it can be a lot of fun!

Video - Dying Easter Eggs Using Natural Materials

Here is a quick video demo of preparing some of the natural egg dyes we discussed on Wednesday, and the dying process, as well as some of the results. You can also get creative and use rubber bands or other items to make patterns or designs, and of course you can get really advanced and glue on other materials, as she demonstrates with the flowers. Pretty cool, huh?

Creative Connections - Natural Easter Egg Dyes
With the Easter holiday right around the corner, Cable 8's Katie Cummings introduces us to some creative methods for dyeing Easter eggs - using all natural dyeing materials.