When Sage was small I thrifted a big bag of plastic easter eggs. I was happy to have something to hide treats in during our spring celebration (and happy to have not purchased them new) but always felt a slight disconnect when I pulled them out each year. They were a little hiccup in our sweet, natural holiday – a bright plastic spot in our woolen and wooden and otherwise earthy spring baskets.
Five springs later I started wondering: could I make a natural replacement for plastic eggs? They would need to be outdoor-friendly and made to contain a tiny treat. I thought about these for weeks last spring until I had an aha! moment and realized how to make them.
Felt Easter Eggs are quick, cute, and infinately reusable. As a bonus the wool felt will stick to tree trunks so you can hide your treats in some unconventional locations! (Cudos to my sister, Titi for this brilliant discovery.) And if you sew with cotton thread and use 100% wool felt any you miss will biodegrade. What more can you ask for?
Felt Easter Egg Tutorial
Materials:
- Small scraps of wool felt
- Contrasting thread
- Hand sewing needle or sewing machine
- Buttons, gems, or other embellishments (optional)
Step 1: Cut out two egg shapes for each woolen egg. Mine are just larger than a chicken egg, approximately 2 1/2" x 3". Cut with a pinking shears or straight shears. The choice is yours. Trim the egg you would like on top to be 1/8" smaller than the bottom egg.
Step 2: Cut an opening 1/3 of the way down from the point of the egg. (Cut the top egg only.) I love the look of a "cracked egg" with a zig-zagging line, but a round hole, an "H" shape, or curvy line works as well. (Do not cut simply a straight line as it can be difficult to get a treat inside without tearing the felt.)
Step 3: Choose yoru embellishments. Mine are wool but we love buttons and any thing sparkly. Especially the sparkly.
Step 4: Set aside the bottom egg. Sew embellishments to the top egg by hand or machine. (My blue flower hides a curvey opening in the yellow egg.)
Step 5: Carefully place the top egg over the bottom egg. Using a contrasting thread, zig-zag or decorative stitch the entire perimiter. Backstitch at the end of your seam.
Your egg is done! You can easily make enough for a backyard egg hunt in an evening. With practice mine took less than five mintues each.
Last spring we kept our felt eggs a secret until our egg hunt was on and the kids were amazed at the woolen eggs that they found. Gentle spring magic, indeed.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Check back tomorrow and Monday for handmade paper-mâché easter eggs (another sweet plastic-alternative for your spring celebration) and ideas for simple, natural gifts for your spring baskets! (Or for daily updates follow Clean. on Facebook.)
Love,
Rachel
Rachel I love this idea. I too have a bag of second hand plasic eggs that just don’t seem to fit in around here. I’m off to find my felt 🙂
Brilliant! This is the answer to my already celebrated Spring Equinox dilema. Next year…the kids will be thrilled! Thanks.
Thanks for sharing this craft idea, Rachel! Similarly, I (well, I think my mother-in-law actually) thrifted a bag of plastic eggs for our first egg hunt when my oldest was two years old, and it has been the one, rather glaring, plastic part of our otherwise natural, lovely, simple, Spring Equinox/Easter celebrations each year since then. Last year I contemplated just hiding little foil-wrapped, fair-trade organic chocolate eggs instead, but I felt my son would really miss the fun of opening up each egg to discover the little treat/treasure inside. This is such a perfect alternative, and I even have everything on hand to make them. Thank you! Love your blog!
Rachel: May I ask for suggestions of what you like to put in your eggs? Is it mostly treats, some healthy options, or something else?
*love*
They are so beautiful.
I am just finishing up a post that includes this. Ill share it tomorrow, Melanie!
Peace,
Rachel
Im glad they will be a good alternative for you, Amy! Enjoy ~ Rachel
Hooray!
hugs, me
Id love to see pictures!
Rachel
Great idea! I was wondering what I could replace plastic eggs with that would still hold a treat. I’m not a big fan of candy so I put change in our easter eggs, mostly pennies, nickels and dimes but also the occasional quarter.
Cute idea! I just bought some plastic Easter eggs, and while – yes – the bright, glaring plastic isn’t “eco-friendly”, they’re cheerful and the kids love ’em. I’m all for other ideas, though!
I’ll bet there are wooden eggs out there…
I’m not big on the candy (I mean, I love candy, but have been trying to stay away!), but I got some organic lollipops, some peanut m&ms (protein!), and hope to find some jelly beans that have real fruit in them. Aside from that, I put a tiny bottle of nail polish in an egg for my daughter, a bunch of coins for the kiddos’ piggy banks, and some small dinosaur toys for my son.
We will also be doing the Resurrection Eggs this year to tell the true meaning of Easter to our children. We have a story book to go along with it.
LOVE FELT!! Really good craft idea. I look forward to doing it with my little ones! We still play and make the “heart babies, ” and have turned it into “duck and bunny babies” using felt and different patterns now for Easter. Thanks for this post! Mara
Change is a great idea, Kim!
Rachel
Going to make a dozen! Thanks for the idea.
gorgeous I am making these today! thank you.
Oh my goodness! I just stumbled on your blog and it is so timely; I just got rid of all our plastic Easter eggs (my daughter’s cat found them and thought they’d make a swell litter box.) I decided not to replace them as I really hate plastic, but didn’t think I could whip up replacements in time for Easter Sunday. These are wonderful! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!
Perfect timing! (Good kitty.) 🙂 Upload your photos to the Clean/LuSa Organics Flickr photo pool wont you?
Peace,
Rachel
Love!!! I’m absolutely going to try. We have never had an egg hunt because I dislike those plastic eggs:)
—–
PING:
TITLE: Lilian Browne
URL: http://www.whatmehey.com
IP: 69.197.14.13
BLOG NAME: Lilian Browne
DATE: 12/10/2011 02:10:57 AM
Awesome post.Much thanks again. Really Cool.