Non-Candy Easter Egg Surprises

     Looking to surprise someone with an Easter egg hunt, but want something more personal than candy and little store bought trinkets?  Here are a few crafty ideas:

Mini Origami

     What could be more adorable than tiny origami critters?  For this craft, resize your origami paper to a fraction of its original size and then make your favorite animal as you normally would.

Egg of Quotes

     This craft is basically a miniaturized version of the quote jar idea that I had heard of, wherein you make a jar of funny or heartwarming things people say.  Brian says many silly and bizarre things and I make sure to jot down the best of them.  I printed off a bunch of his quotes, cut the paper into strips, with one quote per strip, and then folded them up and stuffed them inside the egg.  Alternately, you can use some of your favorite quotes, or perhaps write up a short story and cut out strips with one sentence per strip, then see if your recipient can piece them together to figure out the whole story.

Mini Paper Doll Set

     Draw your own paper dolls or find a pattern and shrink it so that the dolls will fit inside the egg.  I created these "paper dolls" using Paint.  These are the Happy Candy Corn and their various friends and foes.  They're from a comic strip that I drew for Brian.

Things I Love about You

     All you need for this craft is a heart template, colored cardstock, and a pen.  Cut out a bunch of hearts and write on them various things that you love about the recipient.

A Puzzle

     Draw or print out a picture, cut it into pieces, and hide the pieces in the eggs.  Alternately, you could buy a puzzle and place the pieces inside the eggs.

Customize Toys with a Message

     Want to make a store bought item feel more personal?  Write a personal note to go with it.  If it's an animal or something else that tends to be treated anthropomorphically, come up with a personality for the toy, one that will match your recipient's.

For the Jewelry Lover

Spring Pinwheel Earrings
Clay Owl Earrings
Rose and Crystal Drop Earrings
Easy Earrings
Duct Tape Rose Ring
Clay and Button Pendants

Other Ideas

 Note: some of these might be a little large to hide in a standard sized Easter egg, but could still make nice presents for an Easter basket, so I decided to include them anyway.

Pom Pom Chick
Dollhouse Miniatures
Spring Butterfly Bookmarks
Fuse Bead Spring Magnets

Spring Butterfly Bookmarks

     Supposedly there is this thing called "spring" that is on its way.  As a Mainer, I'm a bit skeptical,  *Glances out window to see swirling white oblivion.*  But it sure sounds nice.  Anyway, I guess you're supposed to summon it by bedecking your home in butterflies and flowers and whatnot, so I figured I would give it a try.  I got the idea for the butterflies from this site and thought they would make nice bookmarks.

Materials:
*Solid colored cardstock
*Patterned cardstock
*Butterfly template
*White paint
*Popsicle stick
*Pipe cleaner
*Mod Podge
*Paintbrush
*All purpose adhesive
*Headpin (optional)

Directions:
*Print the below butterfly template onto the sheet of solid colored cardstock.

*Using the "head" of the head pin, add dots of white paint along the edge of the butterfly's wing.
*Set aside to dry.
*Glue on a piece of pipe cleaner to form the butterfly's body.
*Cut out a section of patterned cardstock and decoupage to the popsicle stick.
*Glue the popsicle stick to the butterfly and set aside to dry.

Treasure Rock Dinosaur Eggs

     This craft combines ideas from two of my favorite childhood things: Treasure Rocks and Quaker Dinosaur Eggs Oatmeal.  A couple months back, one of my friends posted a question on Facebook asking if we could remember turning four and all I could remember was that I got these rocks that turned into gems when you put them in water.  I could not remember what they were called, so I started Googling and learned that they were called Treasure Rocks.

An add for Treasure Rocks.  There are more videos on YouTube, but for some reason my YouTube search for linking on Blogger is not the same as my regular YouTube Search 

Me rockin' my Treasure Rocks ring on my fourth birthday

     I also found out that you could make a variation on them with some baking soda and water.  I needed an excuse to make some.  I was planning on throwing my sister a dinosaur themed birthday party, so I realized that instead of putting rhinestones inside I could put plastic dinosaurs inside and call them dinosaur eggs.  This brings me to the Quaker Dinosaur Eggs Oatmeal, which, if you have never had it, is totally worth it to buy if only to watch the eggs "hatch" into dinosaurs.

     So these Treasure Rock Dinosaur Eggs are basically a combination of these two ideas.  They're easy to make and you can hide whatever you would like inside them.  You can retrieve the treasure/dinosaurs inside by pouring some vinegar over the rocks/eggs.

Materials
*Baking soda
*Water
*Food coloring
*Vinegar

Directions:
*Pour some baking soda into a bowl.
*Add a couple of drops of food coloring in a color of your choice.
*Slowly add water until the mixture has a consistency which you can easily mold.  If you add too much water and it gets runny, add some more baking soda.
*Mold the baking soda mixture around the treasure item/dinosaur.
*Set aside to dry for at least 48 hours.  Rocks/eggs should be firm and not flaky when they are done drying.
*Remove treasure with vinegar.  I found that squirting them with a spray bottle filled with vinegar works pretty well and saves on the amount of vinegar you have to use, but alternatively you could just pour vinegar over them or you could dunk them in a bucket of vinegar.

Dinosaur Streamers

     Add a touch of whimsy to your dinosaur party with these adorable streamers.

Materials:
*Cardstock in a variety of colors
*Dinosaur template
*Ribbon
*Scissors
*Black marker
*All purpose adhesive

Directions:
*Print the template given below onto several sheets of cardstock and then cut out the dinosaur shapes.  It can take quite a while to cut out all of the dinosaurs, so if you have access to a die-cutting machine or wouldn't mind investing in some dinosaur die-cuts, those might be better approaches to take.

*Once you have all of your dinosaurs cut out, draw smiling faces onto the "clean" side (i.e. the side you did not print on).  Half of your dinosaurs should be facing one direction and the other half should be facing the other.
*Cut off a length of ribbon and glue it between two dinosaurs.  Repeat with the remaining dinosaurs and set aside to dry.
*Once dry, tape the dinosaur streamers to your ceiling, varying the height of the dinosaurs as you go.

Dinosaur Stamped Napkins

     Here's an easy way to dress up napkins for your next party.  If you already have a collection of stamps, it will cost you virtually nothing to put these together.

Materials:
*Stamps
*Ink
*White napkins

Directions:
*Stamp designs onto the bottom right corner of each napkin.  That's really all there is to it.

Glittery Dinosaur Coasters

Materials:
*Wooden dinosaur shapes
*Paint
*Glitter glue
*Permanent marker

Directions:
*Paint dinosaur shapes with paint in a color of your choice.  Set aside to dry.
*Once dry, add a coat of glitter glue.
*After the glue has dried, draw faces on the dinos using permanent marker.

Glittery, Color Dipped Photos

     Looking for a fun way to display your favorite pics?  Try making these color dipped photos and hang them from a photo "clothesline."  I got the idea from this blog.

Materials:
*Paint in various colors
*Glitter paint
*Paintbrush
*Photos
*Painter's tape

Directions:
*To give photos the old-style Polaroid look, crop photos to squares and leave extra white space around them during the printing.
*Using painter's tape, cover the part of the white space immediately below the image.
*Paint the bottom of the photo below the painter's tape using one of the colors of paint.  Set aside to dry.
*Once dry, add a second coat of paint if necessary.  Finish off with a coat of glitter paint.
*Carefully peel off the painter's tape.  Maybe this happened just because my tape was old and had been living above the heat register, but for some reason the tape did not peel off easily and left behind a sticky residue.  If this happens, carefully wash off as much of the sticky residue as you can with soap and water and then cover the photos using self-adhesive laminate.