An Artful Easter – Inspired by The Artful Year Book

I am so excited by a little package I got in the mail the other day. It was a copy of The Artful Year, a gorgeous new book by Jean Van’t Hul, the creative brain behind The Artful Parent. If you follow my Facebook page, you know that I love how she creates accessible ways to play with art.  With a keen eye for what makes kiddos tick, you can always find that perfect project on her site to inspire creativity in your kids.  And today, I’m giving you a sneak preview of her new book and making some fun tissue paper nests to make Easter more Artful.  Jean gave me a copy of the book, but all of these opinions are my own (mainly because I’m an Artful Parent groupie!).

Make your Easter more creative with these tissue paper nests inspired by the book The Artful Year from Jean Van't Hul, The Artful Parent.

 

The Artful Year

Jean has written a lovely book to help you and your family live a more creative life in the coming year.  The Artful Year is filled with ideas, activities & recipes for every season and all of the major holidays.  All written with her relaxed, easy to follow style that encourages kids and adults to have fun and get creative.  My favorite part of the book?  Art projects thatcan pair with recipes for deliciously fun family afternoons or best friend play dates.The Artful Year Spring Left Brain Craft Brain

An Artful Easter

I had The Babe pick out her favorite projects in the book for us to try.  She debated between play dough snow globes, getting her glitter on with a blue bird paper chain and making some yummy chocolate dipped pretzels.  But Easter won out with all the colorful eggs and unique bird nests in the book.

Reading The Artful Year Left Brain Craft Brain

Tissue Paper Nests

These colorful nests are a simple, sensory craft to do with the kiddos.  And they make a gorgeous Easter decoration. Simply cover a small bowl with plastic wrap and cover with crumpled tissue paper dipped in water-diluted glue. Let it dry and then gently peel from the plastic wrap.  We were impatient with the glue, so popped the bowl in a sunny spot on the patio and the morning’s project was dry by afternoon.

Tissue Paper Bowl Assembly Left Brain Craft Brain

And since we made a nest, of course we needed to decorate some eggs.  I thought great, I have a dozen in the fridge, all ready to color.  Then I remembered that they were brown eggs…  Enter washi tape eggs, one of Left Brain Craft Brain’s very first projects.

Eggs in Tissue Paper Basket Left Brain Craft Brain

There are a bunch more creative ways to decorate eggs in the book.  Be sure to pick up your own copy of The Artful Year to try out all of Jean’s gorgeous Easter decorating ideas.

The Artful Year Blog Tour

A few other creative blogging types had fun reading The Artful Year, too.  Take a peek at their reviews for more creative activities, recipes and interviews with Jean Van’t Hul.

The Artful Year Giveaway

Loving what you see from The Artful Year?  Enter to win your very own copy of the book.  There are two ways to enter: 1) sign up for the Left Brain Craft Brain newsletter or 2) leave me a comment telling me what type of Easter arts & craft projects you like to do with kids.

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47 thoughts on “An Artful Easter – Inspired by The Artful Year Book”

  1. Traditional egg coloring (not too exciting- I know) is my favorite. I also had my 4 year old make string wrapped cardboard egg shapes last year while travelling in the car which she really enjoyed.

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  3. It’s not necessarily a craft but we create the “ugly” egg every year by dying it as many colors as we can. it always ends up being the prettiest egg of the day.

  4. Our favorite holiday crafts involve cooking. We love making easter nest treats – with crispy chow mein noodles and melted baking chocolate. They are the perfect place to rest chocolate robin’s egg candy.

  5. I love working with kids. We made eggs with strings wrapping it around balloons and then popping the balloon adding candy inside of it. Then we hide them.

  6. We love to try making natural dyes from all sorts of materials to dye our eggs. So much room for experimenting and eggs-ploration :)

      1. We found beets and turmeric to be favorites so far. We also went on a hike and collected leaves and flowers, laid them flat onto the egg and tied them on with scraps of fabric. They made beautiful patterns, as did the fabric scraps where it was bunched. We did find that using fresh eggs from our friends without washing them first led to the color rubbing off later. The dyes adhered to the membrane surroundjng the egg and not the shell itself. But we all enjoyed it nonetheless. I should mention the eggs were brown, so the colors were muted and more natural rather than super bright.

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  8. We like to make Easter cards for our friends, and Easter baskets for their candy. We always decorate eggs also.

  9. Tradition egg dying. Last year we tried putting on stickers before dipping them, then peeling them off once dry. A little challenging for small fingers, but a fun way to decorate nonetheless. Drawing on them with white crayons before dipping was also a success!

    1. leftbraincraftbrain

      White crayons were definitely my favorite part of decorating eggs when I was little. I think the whole resist part blew my 5 year old mind :)

  10. I would love to try dyeing the eggs with silk ties or making resurrection rolls….or even spring buntings to add some color to the awakening world! This book sounds amazing as I am always sifting through websites trying to find challenging and fun activities for the kids.

  11. I haven’t thought about this year yet, but last year we painted ostrich eggs, we’re lucky to have an ostrich farm near us!

  12. We made very similar paper mâché eggs one year using strips of scrapbook paper. They are still my favorite Easter decoration. These nests will be the perfect project to accompany them! I follow the Artful parent on Facebook and LOVE her great ideas!

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