Easter Bunny Crafts & More from Oriental Trading Company -- Crafty Weekends Review & Link Party

Disclosure: I was sent these items to review free of charge from Oriental Trading. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to the products for your convenience but do not receive anything if you buy from them.

Easter is only three weeks away!! It is early this year. I have been seeing so many cute bunny things this year and I wanted to jump on the band wagon. I asked Oriental Trading Company to help me make some fun bunny crafts and a few other Easter things. I fell in love with the bunny tote bag at work, but didn't want to spend the money on it since it looked easy enough to do a DIY if I had the canvas bags. So I asked for the DIY White Bags and got to work.  On one of them I hand stitched the eyes, whiskers and mouth and sewed on a pink pom pom (from Hazel's collection) for the nose. On the other I used fabric paint and glued on the pink pom pom.

Since I didn't have extra canvas I used felt for the ears. (I did consider cutting one of the bags to make the ears, but Hazel talked about wanting to make a duck bag as well and I was thinking of having her paint some for Mother's Day gifts.) I used the Gigantic Fantastic Felt Sheets for the ears and sewed them onto both bags. Hazel cannot decide which she likes better. I think they are both pretty adorable!!

Now we had a little other bunny inspiration from other places as well. I fell in love with the Springtime Bunnies Garland at Paper Source. We added bows and Hazel got very creative with the bow/mustache punch to make the bows. We also have two of the Jelly Cat stuffed bunnies. The large one is Hazel's and was a gift from my assistant manager and I fell in love with the little one the other day at work since Hazel doesn't really share hers, so I bought it for myself. I bought a pack of the Bunny Tea Towels and gave one to my sister. She always calls Hazel, Hazel Bunny and she LOVES and collects tea towels. We kept the other one so Hazel could also have one.  I also bought the Chubby Bunny Rubber Stamp because of its cuteness and simplicity.  I bought a package of cardstock bunnies at Target and glued on wihte pom pom tails to the ones that were showing their backside. The pom poms are from the White Pom-Pom Assortment from Oriental Trading. 

When looking for the white bags, I found the DIY White Coin Purses and thought it would be fun to put a bunny face on it. Plus Hazel always is looking for a coin purse to put her money in when we go out. She wants to make a ducky one and wishes they were yellow. Oh, well. She is happy with the bunny one though. I glued on pipe cleaners and a pink pom pom and googly eyes all from our craft supplies. Then I cut ears out of the felt and glued them on as well. I was going to do a face with fabric markers, but could not find them and didn't bother with the fabric paint yet.

I also found the instructions on Oriental Trading to make paper lantern bunnies. They used white lanterns, but I decided to ask for Hot Pink Paper Lanterns to be different. The hot pink inspired Hazel to be a bit creative with colors for her Easter Bunny. I however used the largest pom pom in the assortment for the bunny's nose and used a larger one from our supply for his tail. We used the felt assortment for the ears, arms and feet as well. I hung mine in our dining room and Hazel wants hers in her room. 

We also tried some of the craft kits at Oriental Trading. The first we did was Bunnies Spread God's Love Ornament Craft Kit. Hazel didn't like the pom pom on the head so she left hers off. I love the message on the card and relating it to a bunny (as in the Easter Bunny). It helps connect the two parts of Easter (religious and commercial). 

We also made the Tree Stump Bunny Box Craft Kit. I love this one. We are going to use them at Hazel's next birthday party (fairy garden tea party themed). Won't they be adorable favor boxes? The feet are suppose to be on the pom pom but I found they did not stick well there.

We also have been making the Jesus Loves Every Bunny Sign Craft Kits. Hazel's only wish in this one is that the pink tailed bunny was the largest. These kits are so easy to make and we really love this one. Again I love that it is bringing together the two parts of Easter. My only complaint is that the strings keep falling off. The foam piece to hold them does not want to stay very well unless you really secure it extra well.

Our final bunny craft are these jars. The larger bunnies were cut out at my job on a Cameo Silhouette. (And since I wanted some more colors I traced them and cut more out.) I used the small pom poms from the assortment for the tails. We also used the green grass washi tape that I got at work. Oriental Trading does have washi tape, but do not have the grass one. I used some lime green shredded paper in the jars as well. Hazel used Mod Podge on the jars to attache the rabbits and to coat them all over. We happened to have gloss Mod Podge at home. The other jar has rabbits that I punched out of the scraps from our bunny garland and some of the pages of the Paper Source spring multi pack. She then glued them all over and covered it thickly with the Mod Podge. I added Easter ribbons to the tops of both jars. Hazel is using the smaller jar as a pen holder on her desk. The taller thinner one will be a vase, I think. 

We also colored a set of the Color Your Own Holy Week Ornaments. We gave the rest of the sets to Hazel's teacher. Since there are eleven students in her class and it is a Christian school it will be perfect. Hazel and I have been discussing ideas as to what to do with them. I think we decided to hang one on each day of Holy Week. 

Our final thing to review is not a craft, but is the "He Lives!" Finger Puppets. Hazel loves finger puppets and she loves telling the Easter story so it made sense to get them for her. We got two sets and gave one to her friends who also love finger puppets (two sisters from school). I made a quick cross for the finger puppets by using a glue dot to attach a small craft stick to a wooden craft spoon (we had some in our craft supplies, but these links will take you to ones that would work) and then put another glue dot on the front to make the Jesus puppet stick to the cross. He didn't stick very long though. That is the end of our Easter crafts and play so far. For some Easter inspiration sure to check out our review of a wonderful Lenten story book, our review of The Berenstain Bears' Easter Blessings,  and our Easter Baskets for Dolls from last year. For more bunny crafts and inspiration check out our needle felted bunny from a couple of weeks ago, a quick knitted bunny, bunny peg doll, needle felted bunnies, Peep inspired bunnies, large chenille stem bunny, Easter egg bunny, and finger print bunny.

Thank you to everyone who shared with us at last week's party!! There seemed to be some mix up between Crafty Weekends and Sharing Saturday (child-oriented crafts and activities only), so I am choosing some of the features from Sharing Saturday that were more adult crafts.  I hope you will check them all out and remember it is just a sampling of the amazing crafts shared.

Also remember for your child-oriented crafts, activities, lessons, etc. Sharing Saturday is going on!! For any cultural related posts (diversity and/or multicultural as well) be sure to share at the month long Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop. A new Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop just started this morning! Here is a sampling of features from last week's party! This week's features are in three categories: St. Patrick's Day, Easter and Everything Else.

St. Patrick's Day Features

1) From Design By Miss Mandee: Shamrock Die Cuts
 
2) From Home Cooking Memories: Easy St. Patrick's Day Gift Idea with Free Printable

3) From The Jenny Evolution: St. Patrick's Day Skittles Decorations

4) From Naptime Creations: LUCKY to be Your Friend Printable

  
5) From Bombshell Bling: Ribbon Skirt Tutorial

Easter Features

 

1) From Simply Darrling: DIY Gold Foil Easter Printable

2) From Growing Up Gabel: Easter Painted Wooden Spoons

3) From The Jenny Evolution: DIY Easter Egg Tree Decoration

4) From Ginx Craft: Easter Bunny Rabbits

5) From  Savvy Apron: Easter Bunny Garland

6) From Clean and Scentsible: Free Easter Printable

7) From Flamingo Toes: DIY Embroidered Bunny Pendant

8) From Living La Vida Holoka: DIY Easter Air Plant Terrarium

9) From Inspirations for Moms: DIY Spring Easter Flower Basket

10) From Sunny Sweet Days: Creative Easter Egg Decorating Ideas 

Other Features

1) From The Logbook: Pretty Pastel

2) From Oh, My! Creative: Spring Moss Craft Decor

3) From The Ribbon Retreat Blog: DIY Scalloped Mirror

4) From Frugal Foodie Mama: Throwing a Jake and the Neverland Pirate Birthday Party



Thank you to everyone who shared the last week!! I hope you will share again!! If you are featured here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog. I would love the help spreading the word about Crafty Weekends!!

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 Please share family friendly crafts here. Just crafts and/or patterns--no recipes, lessons, etc. You can share craft product reviews as well. By linking up here you are giving me permission to share your links and to pin your links. Please follow my Crafty Weekends Feature Pinterest Board to see all the features from these fun link parties!

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