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5 cheep ways to make Easter egg-stra special
Easter was one of my favourite holidays as a kid. Sweets were usually rationed in my house, so we all looked forward to the one day a year when we could eat chocolate for breakfast!
Looking back on it, I now see why my mum limited our sugar intake. For anyone looking after kids this Easter; good luck.
Having two energetic nephews to entertain this Easter myself, I realise that luck probably isn’t enough. That’s why I’ve put together a list of my favourite thrifty egg-themed Easter games, DIY activities and recipes (as well as many egg-related puns) to give you a few ideas for the long weekend. These activities will help your little ones blow off steam (and the sugar rush!), and they’re pretty good fun for adults too…
Easter egg hunt
This had to be in the number one spot. What would Easter be without an Easter egg hunt?! When it comes to this time-old tradition, there’s no need to shell out (ahem…) on fancy days out. Often local libraries and museums put on free treasure hunts, or you can set up your own at home or at your local park.
There are loads of variations on the original ‘hide-and-seek’ style Easter egg hunt, from making an Easter egg web with string to help kids find their prizes to giving players a treasure map with ‘eggs’ marks the spot!
Another great idea is to put on a reverse Easter egg hunt. Get the kids in your family to decorate one or more chocolate eggs and hide them around the house, and then have all the adults try to find them. Offering a prize to the child whose egg is found last is bound to bring them out of their shells! There are plenty more ideas to jazz up your Easter egg hunt on the One of a Kind blog.
Potato printing
The humble potato is delicious mashed, boiled or roasted…but it’s also perfect for painting! With an old potato, a knife and a bit of patience, you can create your own Easter egg stamp in just a few minutes. Kids will need a helping hand to cut out their stamp, but they’ll love to design it and get messy with the paint.
As well as printing onto paper to make egg-celent Easter cards or pictures to hang on the wall, you could use textile paint and print onto a tea towel or a tablecloth. If you’re feeling extra creative then you could always make other Easter themed stamps. How cute would chicks and rabbits be?! You can get the full instructions from Crafty Morning.
Stained glass window sweets
If you don’t think your blood sugar’s high enough this Easter weekend, why not try these egg-shaped stained glass window sweets? They’re made by putting crushed up boiled sweets on parchment paper and heating them in the oven. You can use a cookie-cutter to make it egg-shaped, which means you can make whatever design you want.
Edible decorations are the way forward in my opinion, but the kids could make them to use in the Easter egg hunt or you could give them as gifts to family and friends if you’re sweet enough already. Check out the recipe from Sugartown Sweets.
Salt dough decorations
Most of us will decorate a tree at Christmas, so why not at Easter too?! I remember spending painstaking hours hollowing out eggs and painting them to decorate our ‘Easter tree’, only for my brother to walk past and knock them all off. These salt dough decorations are a lot more robust, and can be reused again for years to come if you look after them.
You can easily make your own salt dough with flour, salt and water, and it can take some tough treatment which is good news if the kids have free range! Yolks aside, Design Mom has a great guide to making salt dough decorations.
Colourful eggs
If you’re eggshausted after making all your egg-themed decorations, what could be better than sitting down to a nice nutritious meal?! These colourful treats are made by hard-boiling eggs, rolling them on a hard surface to crack the shells, adding some food colouring to the water and re-boiling them. The end result looks like cracked ceramic…pretty cool!
If you’re wondering who hatched an idea like this, you might find it interesting to know that these eggs are a variation on Chinese tea eggs, which were made in the same way but by infusing the water with soy sauce.
If the thought of dyeing your eggs makes you feel a bit queasy, you could always give them a face:
Could there be a more adorable way to eat eggs?! Simply add sesame seeds or peppercorns for eyes and triangles of carrot for beaks. Get the recipe from Just Jenn Recipes.
If you have any cheep ideas to entertain the family this Easter, let us know in the comments!
