Easter craft. Free-range style. Easy.

My children love creating. No secret really. They much prefer to be given ideas and then make their own decisions, creating their own way.

I think of it as free-range style craft.

Occasionally they will choose to watch instructions and copy ideas, but they always put their own spin on it. In a way this makes my job easy. All I need to do is provide the materials, and they will create for hours. Cleaning up can take a little while, but cleaning one table is much quicker than cleaning the entire house, which they can destroy rearrange in a messy fashion, in a matter of minutes.

As everyone is concentrating on their individual projects, it's also a generally calm time, when I can chat to each of them without much interruption. Sometimes I will even get some sewing done! Especially now as my new sewing area is so close to our dining table. It's definitely function over form when it comes to decorating here;)

So when only two children needed to make Easter hats for school, and we had a couple of disappointed I'm-not-included looks, the answer was simple: Easter craft afternoon!

I used the same plates as for our Autumn craft extravaganza, and set up the dining table with Easter hat supplies at one end, and other craft supplies along the remainder of the table. I printed out a simple egg shape, resizing it using the scanner. The table looked like this.

I added all the glue: glue sticks, PVA and the hot glue gun (with cold water at the ready close by!) once I could stay at the table next to it.

They all had a great time creating. Jack was out riding and visiting friends, so he came home closer to the end of the time.

And the Easter hats?

Jack decided to make crosses for our Easter bunting. The kids decided part way through that the decorated eggs should be hung as bunting so we could see them all really well. Not just on the notice board in the study.

Our finished bunting:

And finally the Easter hat parade photos:

Have a wonderful Easter!

Jen.x