Simple And Entertaining Easter Crafts...

Easter crafts are all about creating your own eggs, bunnies, lambs

and baby chicks from simple materials such as construction paper, egg shells, and fluffy balls of cotton.

Although these types of projects mostly fall into the category of easter crafts for kids, adults can also experience a great deal of enjoyment creating easter basket crafts for family member and friends.

Easter basket crafts are almost as old as the holiday itself. To make one all you need is a basket and some imagination.

Easter basket crafts come in two categories:

• The tableau vivante
• And the gift basket.

The tableau vivante type of easter basket involves taking a wicker or wooden basket of some kind and using the inside to create a miniature scene filled with lambs made of cotton batten, chicks made of cotton batten emerging from freshly cracked eggs.

It is very easy to make a baby chick by winding yellow pipe cleaner into the shape of a bird, attaching two "wiggly" eyes (easily purchased at a craft store) and yellow feathers and placing it inside a broken decorated egg shell.

The easter crafts basket can then be lined with green felt (to resemble grass) and decorated with easter eggs or candies.

The easter crafts gift basket is an ornamental basket decorated with pink, blue and yellow ribbons. You can cut egg, chick and lamb shapes out of cardboard and decorate the side of the basket and then fill it with a fresh bouquet of daffodils, an assortment of jams or jellies or chocolate easter eggs and bunnies.

A completely classy gift for a friend who is into gardening is an easter crafts basket filled with tulip or daffodil bulbs. You can also fill the basket with potting soil and plant the seeds of spring flowers in it.

Easter is all about eggs and probably the most common easter craft that we associate with the holiday is the painting of eggs. Traditionally this is done by poking a pinhole in an egg, sucking the effluvia up thorough the straw and then dipping the egg in dye.

Many craft stores sell the equipment for painting Easter Eggs in the Ukrainian tradition which entails tracing wax with a small instrument onto the egg and then dipping it in a series of pots of dyes to create colorful patterns. You can also decorate hard-boiled eggs to resemble chicks, lambs and cartoon characters using markers, construction paper and cotton balls. This is one of the most fun crafts for kids, especially if you pass the same egg around to several children who have markers or paints and ask each to add a detail to the egg creature.

A great easter bunny craft idea for kids is to buy several handbands and then have your children create bunny ears out of stiff cardboard. Let them color the bunny ears and then staple the floppy bunny ears to the headbands. Before you know it your kids will be hopping all over the place with joy!

There is no lack of inspiration for crafts on the Internet. All you have to do to find scores of ideas for easter crafts is type words like easter bunny crafts or easter basket crafts into your search engine and you will most certainly find the arts and crafts project that is perfect for you to share with your family.