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Spring and Easter Crafts, Ideas & More with Products from Oriental Trading -- a 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 each item for your convenience but do not receive anything if you purchase them.

Can you believe Easter is only two weeks away? I love spring and Easter and love making various crafts for this time of year. I also am always looking for some non-candy ideas for the Easter eggs and basket. I turned to my friends at Oriental Trading for some of all of these. I cannot wait to share with you what we have been making and what surprises Hazel will have on Easter morning. We will start with ideas for the Easter eggs and basket and our new Easter flag.

Hazel fell in love with Snoopy and Peanuts cartoons, so I know she is going to love these Peanuts Easter Bouncing Balls and they are the perfect size for inside the plastic Easter eggs. Hazel LOVES searching for the eggs so I keep trying to add more and more. She literally asks for egg searches for a month after Easter. She is already in LOVE with the Peanuts Easter Garden Flag. We have it in front of the house, but she has informed me she wants it in front of her clubhouse in the summer.  She wants Snoopy out there even if it says "Happy Easter" and will keep it out all summer!! Another great egg filler are the Duckie Pencil Sharpeners. They fit perfectly and of course Hazel has her thing for duckies!! Then I got a dozen of the He is Risen Toy-Filled Plastic Easter Eggs for the Easter Bunny to hide. (I had thought of getting them for her classmates but there are thirteen in the class and I knew she would want one.) The Easter Bunny will also be hiding these Space Bunny-Filled Carrot Rocket Plastic Easter Eggs. Hazel also informed me that there has to be a stuffed animal in the basket. She assumes there always will be. I know she is going to love this Plush Bunny with Personalized Shirt. So those are some of the special things we are sharing this Easter. Now for some fun crafts. 
We have been making these Holy Week Bracelets quite a bit. Hazel had the idea of taping down the end of the string while beading. She is constantly asking me to bead with her. She has a list of people she wants to give these to and she gave one away today. At church today one of the girls who is about to move to London told her she really liked her bracelet and Hazel gave it to her since she knew she could make another one and would not see the girl again (or at least for the two years she will definitely be in England). These are easy to make and I really like the charms on them. We also put one on our Lent table. I added it to the cross I got as a child.

 We re-arranged our Lent table to fit on the Resurrection Set. I love having this set to give Hazel something to tell the story of Easter. Just like she plays with the creche pieces she can play with these pieces and truly learn and feel the Easter story. This set is bulky and perfect for smaller hands. 

 I also got the Religious Easter Adult Coloring Book. The book has beautiful pictures to color. There are scenes from the Easter story and just flowers and other pictures with scripture and quotes. I love this book. Hazel cannot wait to get to color in it as well. I also love that the pages are perforated for easy removal and on the back side there is a place to sign and date the pictures. 
Our final craft has been a fun one. We got the idea from Oriental Trading's Bottle Cap Pendant Necklace Idea and these American Girl Necklace Favors. Hazel is very into the historical American Girl books and dolls. She really wants to get an American Girl doll (or three) this year. She is having a hard time deciding what she wants--Kit, Rebecca, or Samantha and is figuring out ways to get all of them. Kirsten is also on her wish list, but since she is discontinued she is not expecting or planning on it. She has decided she wants to have a Beforever doll birthday party, so we are all about American Girl Beforever dolls right now. These pendants are pretty easy to make and these were experiments for possible favors and they actually gave us some craft ideas for the party.

 We did make a bunny pendant for the spring, but I used it as my one to try methods and it has several mistakes including an extra hole punched in it. We played with different things glued around the edges and decided we liked them plain best. To make these pendants we used Flattened Bottle Caps and 8mm Metal Jumprings. I printed out 1-inch circle pictures of the dolls and bunnies.A few of the pictures got distorted in the process of getting it into a 1-inch circle. Hazel picked out her favorite dozen pictures. 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8PVW7zBWFxsWUdpcy1YOWpuV0k/view?usp=sharing

Then I punched them out with a 1-inch circle punch. I used her Xyron Sticker Maker to make the circles into stickers. You could use a different adhesive as well. Making them stickers made it easy. We stuck them onto the bottle caps. Then to seal them we used a dimensional Mod Podge since I had not gotten the epoxy stickers (and I couldn't find them at our local craft stores). I would recommend getting the stickers however. The Mod Podge gave air bubbles that did not come out no matter what I tried and took 24 hours to dry.
Once they were dry I punched holes in them. I tried punching the hole in the picture of the bunny (thus a mistake) but the ring did not really fit well. (You will need the punch tool as well. I picked one up at a local craft store with a coupon since I had not gotten it from Oriental Trading. I thought I could use some of my other tools and messed up one of my dollhouse tools in the process.) Then we experimented with seed beads and glitter around some of them. We liked it but the glitter was too messy. Both Hazel and I like the plain ones better though. 

 For the party we are thinking of getting some 1/2-inch bottle caps and making charm bracelets with some of the Beforever girls. Another idea is to make a necklace for the dolls with a photo of her owner. Again using the epoxy stickers will make it much easier and faster.

So these are some of the things we have been crafting or will be using this Easter. What have you been creating?

Thank you to everyone who shared with us at our last party!! I loved seeing what everyone has been creating lately!! Below are some features from the party, but this is just a small sample of great ideas shared! This week we have two groups of features: Easter Crafts and Other Great Crafts.

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 Creative Blog Hop.

Easter Crafts


 1) From Flamingo Toes: Sweet Floral Bunny Dishtowel

2) From The Jenny Evolution: How to Make Natural Easter Egg Dyes

3) From Lolly Jane: Easter Candy Topiary

4) From Bombshell Bling: "He Has Risen" FREE Easter Printable

5) From Jennifer Perkins: Gardening Themed Easter Basket

6) From  Do More for Less: Boxwood Easter Wreath

Other Fun Crafts


1) From Somewhat Simple: Paper Bag Kites

 2) From Tried & True: Metallic Checkerboard Side Table

3) From The Scrap Shoppe: Special Map Coasters

4) From The Turquoise Home: DIY Farmhouse Wooden Box Centerpiece

5) Suzerspace: Bee Happy Banner

 
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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