It's Handmade: Upcycled Cardboard Easter Eggs

Thursday, 2 April 2020

Upcycled Cardboard Easter Eggs

This post is sponsored by Plaid Enterprises.

Easter has really snuck up on this year and we’re guessing you might be in the same boat! We look forward to spring and decorating for Easter every year – it’s always such a treat to add some bright and pastel colors to our home and we’re excited to be doing that today with these upcycled eggs! We always seem to have lots of cardboard boxes around and they came in perfectly handy for this project.

With a little help from Folk Art paint, this cardboard has a whole new life! These rolly polly eggs can be decorated in almost the exact same way as regular eggs and may even be easier for little hands since these eggs will sit nice and flat on the table. Make a handful to decorate your dining table, set them around your house, or even hide them for your kids to find in an Easter egg hunt! Keep reading for all the instructions below.

what you need:

FolkArt Acrylic Craft Paint
Paintbrush
Corrugated cardboard
Craft knife
Scissors
Pencil
Scrap paper

how-to:

Step 1
On a piece of scrap paper, draw out the size of egg you would like to make. We made three slightly different sizes for variety. When you are drawing this egg shape, it helps to fold the scrap paper in half first so that you just have to draw half an egg on the fold and cut out for a more symmetrical shape.

Once you’re happy with the egg shape on paper, fold it in half so that the top little part of the egg and bottom larger part and touching. This will give you the midpoint of the egg’s height – mark this with a pencil.

When tracing the template onto cardboard, you’ll need two flat cardboard eggs to make one 3D egg. When you have the outline cut out, it’s time to add the slot down the middle to connect the two pieces together. On the first piece, cut the slot from the bottom of the egg to the midpoint and on the second egg make the slot from the top of the egg to the midpoint. Make sure that the slot is about as thick as the cardboard you’re using so that the two pieces slot snugly together. Test this out to make sure the fit is good and use scissors or a craft knife to adjust this if needed.

Step 2
Once your have all the cardboard egg pieces cut out, give them a coat of paint. We used pastel pink, blue, and purple. When the first sides are painted and dry, flip them over and paint the backs and sides as well. Let dry.

Step 3
Paint some patterns onto your eggs! We love a traditional speckled egg look, so mixed a little bit of water into some white paint and use a brush to shake and spatter little speckles onto both sides, allowing each side to dry first. You could paint any pattern you like: polka dots, stripes, anything really!

Step 4
Once the paint is completely dry, slot the eggs together! If some are tricky and too snug, use scissors to trim the slot as needed until they fit together.