DIY My Little Belleville Easter Egg Columns

Brittany

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March 30, 2021

DIY My Little Belleville Easter Egg Columns

I love working with Michelle from My Little Belleville. We have worked together on painted pumpkins for Halloween (twice!), printable Halloween cards, and nativity puppets for Christmas, as well as an illuminating artist interview! You also may have also seen some of her Valentine cards in our shop. Her work has such a playful, painterly feeling that keeps us coming back for more. The House that Lars Built and My Little Belleville fit together like Easter and eggs.

For this painted Easter egg project, Michelle sent me wooden easter eggs that she had painted with faces and patterns. Can you even believe the personality that all her little faces have? We’re in love. We stacked them up and voilà! Painted Easter egg columns!

These make an excellent Easter table decoration because they add interest and height without getting in the way of your sight lines. There’s nothing more awkward than sitting down to a meal and not being able to make eye contact with the person across from you!

Make Your Own painted Easter egg columns

Materials

To make your own you will need

wooden eggs,
template for faces (in the style of My Little Belleville)
acrylic paint,
a paintbrush or two,
a hot glue gun,
hot glue sticks,
and egg cups to display your finished columns in

Instructions

Paint all of your wooden eggs in solid background colors, then let them dry.
Set aside a few eggs that will be the heads. It’s nice to vary the columns in height, so leave 1-3 non-head eggs per head.
Paint faces on the eggs you set aside. Consider adding facial expressions, hats, cheeks, makeup, etc. Individuality is the goal!
Paint patterns on the remaining eggs. Flowers, dots, stripes, and plaid patterns all look great.
Let all the eggs dry completely.
Put a pea-sized dollop of hot glue on the tops of the pattern eggs. Immediately after placing the glue, hold the eggs together so that the glue can set. Repeat for all your eggs.
Set up your painted Easter egg columns in egg cups. If you like, you can secure them with a dot of glue (make sure that it will be able to come off your egg cup completely so that you can use it again later).

We would love to see your painted Easter egg column tablescapes! If you make this project, tag us with #EasterWithLars.

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Honeycomb Easter Eggs

Honeycomb Easter Eggs

Brittany

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March 15, 2021

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Longer Days and Hope for Spring

Making these honeycomb Easter eggs feels therapeutic after what has felt like the longest Winter ever. Spring in Utah is laughably capricious and I haven’t seen the end of snow days, but now I am absolutely REVELING in longer, warmer days. Between these honeycomb Easter eggs, the balmy weather I have been enjoying, and receiving the first dose of the COVID vaccine, I am feeling hopeful. And it’s about time! Something I love about Easter is the focus on growth and light after a time of darkness and fear, and this year it is really hitting home.

Sitting down to make these honeycomb Easter eggs is a great opportunity to practice some mindfulness. Here’s to the renewed hope that comes from both Spring and science.

DIY Honeycomb Easter Eggs

Mixing paper colors while building these eggs makes me feel excited to dye Easter eggs soon, but these paper honeycomb eggs have the added benefit of never going bad. I love a project that you can do once and then toss into storage to take out year after year. No rotten egg smell here!

This is a great project to do with your Cricut or other cutting machine, but if you don’t have one you can still make these honeycomb Easter eggs. Just get your scissors ready!

Supplies:

Cardstock Paper, our honeycomb egg template, super glue, hot glue, glue gun, Cricut machine (or else scissors and an increased time commitment), ribbon for hanging

Thanks so much for checking out these materials! When you buy through these links we get a small commission (at no additional cost to you) that helps us keep up the crafting.

Instructions:

Download the honeycomb egg template from our shop
With your Cricut machine, cut out the paper pieces. We used 54 pieces per ornament, which we were able to cut from 3 pieces of 12×12 cardstock.
Sort your egg pieces into a pile for every egg, with 50-60 cutouts in each pile. This is when you will put together colors and patterns. We did a few variations of simply alternating colors, but the sky’s the limit here (a kid-curated, random-looking egg would be beautiful, too)!
With your super glue, draw a line from the curved outside edge of a cutout to the straight inside edge about halfway up the egg.
Place the next cutout on top, taking care to line it up on top of the first one.
Similar to the way you glued the first cutouts together, draw two lines from the outside edge to the inside, one toward the bottom of the egg and one toward the top.
Place the next cutout on top.
Repeat steps 4-7, alternating between one and two lines of glue, until you have glued together your entire stack.
Seal the spine of your egg by putting a line of hot glue along the straight inside edge and spreading it with the warm metal tip of your glue gun. Repeat this until the spine is held together.
Using your hot glue, attach both ends of a ribbon to the spine so that it can be hung up.
Bend the beginning and end of your paper cutout stack so that they meet and secure with glue. Sometimes a few pieces of paper will separate at this step. That’s okay! Just dab a little more glue between them and hold them together to secure them again.
Tadaa! You have finished a honeycomb Easter egg! Make as many as you please and fill your home with Easter joy.

A Craft and Treat for Palm Sunday

Brittany

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March 11, 2021

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Palm Sunday lands on the fourth and final Sunday of Lent marking the beginning of Holy Week. When Jesus entered Jerusalem as part of his journey to the cross, crowds cheered and waved palm branches. They also laid the leaves across the road to welcome him. Little did they know how things would pan out in just a few days! But the solemn events of Holy Week remind us of the triumph in the end. Palm branches have long been symbolized for victory and peace; therefore to celebrate Palm Sunday, we have revamped our DIY paper palm leaves so that the victory leaves can set the tone for your Palm Sunday table. The symbolic nature of the leaves will remind everyone of this triumphant occasion and you can prepare the leaves ahead of time as a Palm Sunday craft.

How to make your Paper Palm Leaves

To make our Palm Sunday craft this year, we used our past paper palm leaves tutorial and just made them smaller! You can see that past project here.

Supplies:

Brown butcher paper
A pair of scissors
Palm Leaf Template + Stem Template (on our shop)
Glue gun
Scotch tape
Lollipop sticks
Spray paint
Acrylic paints

Instructions:

Trace out your leaf template and cut it out. (We have formatted the the template to cut up to 8.5×11. However, the leaves that we made for our tablescape were smaller. To accomplish this you can use the template and size down by hand or send it to print at a smaller scale.)
Fan your leaf shape: start from the middle fold, choosing one side of your teardrop-shaped leaf to begin making even smaller folds, helping your leaf get that pretty fanned palm look. Repeat on the other side. (you can use a scoring tool to help you get sharper folds)
Color your leaf: before connecting your leaf to the stem, you’ll want to paint it to make sure it gets an even color throughout. BEFORE PAINTING be sure your creases are defined! Then flatten out your shape again, just enough that you can get an even coat of paint on it. Paint and let dry for 1-2 hours! We used spray paint.
While your leaf is drying, make the petiole stem!
Use petiole stem paper cover template (once again this can be sized down on the computer or sized down based off the printed template, or up if you want to make larger palms like did here!)
Fold your stem along the dotted lines on the template.
You should be able to make a long pyramid-looking stem now with your paper! Hot glue the extra 4th fold to hold it all together (leave the extra 2-3 inches at the top unglued).
Paint your petiole stem to match the leaf!
After your leaf is dry, follow your original creases to re-fold your leaf into its fan shape
Take a lollipop stick and place it inside of the most middle crease of your leaf, only a few inches from the bottom. Hot glue it in place.
Cut diagonally from the leaf to the stick to take the excess off of where the leaf meets the stick (refer to photo).
Tape the very bottom together to keep the shape of the leaf fanned and the stick secure
Slide your petiole stem paper cover over the lollipop stick (the 2-3 inch extra end first.) Allow those 2-3 inches at the top to cover the very bottom of the leaf. Also cover the area where your leaf is glued/taped to your stick. Finally, hot glue the top in place.

Resurrection Rolls Recipe

To complete our Palm Sunday craft and tablescape, we added this yummy recipe and family tradition from our Project Manager, Hailey! Her mom would make them every time at this year.

“Resurrection Rolls have been a yummy tradition for years in our family. They’ve easily become the tastiest, and easiest Easter morning breakfast. They’re essentially buttered marshmallows wrapped in crescent rolls. As the rolls raise, the marshmallow melts out and leaves the roll hollow and empty. This is a great way to teach young kids about the Easter story of Jesus being resurrected and his tomb left empty. The best part is, you only need a handful of ingredients. See below!”

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter or margarine
1 tube of crescent dough
Bag of large marshmallows
Cinnamon or cinnamon sugar

Instructions:

Melt butter in one bowl
Mix cinnamon sugar in another bowl
Open the crescent dough and lay them flat on a cookie sheet
Grab a marshmallow, dunk it in melted butter, roll in cinnamon sugar
Place the dunked marshmallow in the middle of the dough and pinch the dough around it
Place about 3 inches apart from each other back on the cookie sheet
Follow baking instructions on dough packaging and bake

When you finish our project, display the leaves on your brunch tablescape and enjoy time with your family as you celebrate and remember Palm Sunday.

DIY Easter Decor Projects For 2021

Brittany

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February 16, 2021

1

DIY Easter Home Decor

From entryway wreaths to napkin settings, we have fun DIY Easter decor projects for anyone and everyone as the holiday quickly approaches.

Easter Egg Wreath

What better way to welcome Easter than a wreath made of Easter eggs! With some crepe paper, paper mache eggs, glue gun, and a wreath frame, you can make yourself a rainbow Easter egg wreath.

If you are the type of crafter who would prefer all of your project supplies all wrapped up in a pretty little kit, ready to go, we hear you. We will be releasing our Easter Egg Wreath Kit again this year! Sign up for our newsletter here, and follow along on our Lars Shop Instagram to be the first to know when the kits become available for limited early bird pricing.

Easter Egg Pom-Poms

Or you can decorate a bunch of springtime branches with pom pom Easter eggs! They’re easy to make and the pops of color will brighten any room.

Pysanky Dyed Eggs

If you want to learn a new way to decorate eggs, try your hand at these beautiful traditional Pysanky eggs. We offer an E-Book and video tutorial, which makes the seemingly daunting craft very doable.

DIY Easter Basket Gifts

Bunny Baby Bonnets

Did you or someone you know welcome a newborn this spring? Then these adorable baby bunny bonnets are a must! If there’s one thing the world needs right now, it’s more babies in bunny bonnets!

Carrot Surprise Balls

A fun craft to make with or for a child are these DIY carrot surprise balls. Wrap a treat or toy and have fun shaping it into a carrot. Pack them in baskets and deliver them to friends, use them for a scavenger hunt, or simply make a basket-full for your little one(s).

Stuffed Easter Bunny

Another popular Easter project is the DIY stuffed Easter bunny. They are simple to make and a unique gift to add to an Easter basket. Plus, if you make the baby bunny bonnets mentioned above your little one will MATCH with their new stuffed toy! Take a second to let that cuteness sink in.

Danish Easter Letters

Finish the basket with a whimsical Danish letter called gækkebreve, or snowdrop letters. We have readymade PDF templates to download and use.

Easter Table Settings

Create a festive mood for Easter brunch with these DIY Easter decor ideas for the table: daffodil napkin bouquets, an Easter egg runner tablescape, and mini basket place settings. We love to go all out for holidays and when preparation is done early enough, you can make the table setting eggs-traoradinary!

Easter Printables

The fun doesn’t end with decor and crafts! Print some Easter bunnies and chicks paper dolls for your children to color and play. Or add these golden bunny hairpins and printable cards to your Easter basket!

We also have Easter egg coupons for you and your family to find during your egg hunt. These are great if you are aiming for a more sugar-free holiday this year! Replace the candy in your egg hunt with the printable coupons, for fun prizes your kids will be even more excited about! This way you can keep the cadbury eggs all to yourself 😉

I hope you found at least one from our list you’d like to make! Whether easy or difficult, if there’s one (or more!) you love, don’t hesitate to try! Share your experiences with us, some tips and tricks you may have discovered, and of course the final products! Use the hashtag #Larsmakes , and we look forward to seeing all your amazing projects!

DIY Ox for Chinese New Year

Brittany

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February 5, 2021

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The Chinese zodiac is a repeating 12-year cycle of animal signs based on the lunar calendar. In order, the zodiac animals are: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig. 2021 is the year of the Ox, and the Lunar New Year, also known as Spring Festival, marks the transition from one zodiac animal to the next.

Much like the zodiac signs we know as horoscopes, each Chinese zodiac animal represents personality traits, romantic compatibility, and what fortune the year will bring. In Chinese culture, the ox is a valued animal because of its role in agriculture and its positive attributes. People born in the year of the Ox distinguish themselves as honest and hard-working. Because of their honest and earnest character traits, they are reliable and trustworthy. They tend to be low-key and never look for praise, but their hard work often leads to recognition. These are only some of the traits associated with people born in the year of the Ox. Find more here.

Make Your Own Year of the Ox Party Decor

Supplies:

Pencil or marker, cardboard, craft knife, paper or packing tape, hot glue gun (with LOTS of glue sticks for all that fringe), acrylic or tempera craft paint and a paintbrush, brown tissue paper (multiple shades make a nice look, but only one is necessary), scissors, red, white, and tan cardstock, and red, yellow, and green crepe paper.

Instructions:

Draw a basic ox body shape onto a piece of cardboard and cut it out (you can add the horns and ears later!)
Using the first cutout ox, trace and cut out another. Now you have both sides of your piñata.
Cut long strips of corrugated cardboard 3 inches wide. You want the corrugation running perpendicular to the length of the strip so that it can bend easily to your ox’s contours.
Using paper or packing tape and starting with one side at a time, attach the cardboard strips to the perimeter of the ox. Add more cardboard strips as needed to wrap around the entire circumference of the ox body.
Affix the other side of your ox with your tape. The ox should become 3D at this point.
Wrap the hooves in tissue paper (about 11×11 inch squares worked well for us) and secure with glue.
Cut long strips of tissue paper fringe (we used a mix of browns to get a pretty variegated look). The strips should be about three inches tall with fringe slits cut up about two inches.
Working from bottom to top and wrapping around your ox’s body, glue down the fringe. You can alternate colors as desired, but it looks nice to have a base color you come back to.
Accessorize! Cut eyes, ears, and rosy cheeks out of cardstock and glue them to your ox. Cut two horns from cardboard and paint them, then glue them to your ox’s head. We made a tail by gluing some extra tissue paper fringe to a ribbon and attaching it to the ox’s rump.
Make red paper peonies. Cut out a small rectangle (¾ by 2 inches or so) of yellow crepe paper and cut fringe into it, then roll it up to form the center of the flower. Secure with hot glue. Cut out red crepe paper petals and shape them by slightly stretching the middle to get a cup shape. Ruffle the tops of the petals by stretching small sections along the petals’ tops. Glue the petals to the yellow center. Cut out a few green crepe paper leaves and attach them to your ox along with your peonies.

This year, we wanted to lift our dreary winter moods in February by looking to world festivities. The Lunar New Year, aka Spring Festival, seemed like a fun celebration to set the tone for the coming spring. Display our DIY Ox as a lucky centerpiece to welcome the new year and all that it has in store for us.

DIY Twisted Candles for a Romantic Valentine’s Day Dinner

Brittany

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January 26, 2021

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We made our candles in red and pink to add them to our Valentine’s day decorations. They would be perfect to display on the mantle, dining table, bookshelf, bathroom, anywhere, really! They would also be perfect to light on your Valentine’s day dinner at home. These candles are functional, beautiful, and customizable. No wonder we love them!

DIY Twisted Candles

Supplies:

Candles

Ziplock bag

Rolling Pin

Instructions:

(based on 12 inch tall candles)

Fill a bowl with warm enough water to cover candles

2. Soak candles in warm water for 15-20 min, or until they are flexible

3. Working with one candle at a time – transfer a candle to a ziplock bag

3. Using your rolling pin, roll the center of the candle flat until it is a 1/2″ wide. Make sure to leave 2″ at the top of the candle that is unrolled, as well as 2″ from the bottom.

Tip: If at any point the candle is becoming too firm to roll out, let it sit in the warm water longer and then start rolling again.

5. Once you have flattened out the center of your candle, slowly twist it until you have created the look you want!

Embrace the trend and flaunt your modern flair!

Don’t forget to add some Doily Honeycomb Decorations and Valentines Heart Pom-Poms to your Valentine’s day decorations this year!

DIY Sparklers For New Year’s Eve

Brittany

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December 22, 2020

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We’ve been busy sharing our favorite DIYs for a fun New Year’s Eve celebration, including paper crowns, 2021 glasses, and more from the Lars archives. Today we’re delving into a really fun project to add to these—some DIY sparklers!

Maybe you’re not a fan of actual fireworks, or the thought of going outside in the chilly night air on New Year’s Eve is not appealing. Either way, this craft is for you. These sparklers require no fire, no lighters, no matches…nothing. Which makes it perfect for the whole family to enjoy, even your youngest kiddos!

All you need to make your own DIY sparklers is some colorful cellophane and some wooden dowels. And like many of our projects, this one is reusable.

DIY Sparklers

Materials:

Wooden dowels

Cellophane: We used gold, but also love this iridescent option and this colorful set. You can also use ribbon or tissue paper.

Scissors

Hot Glue Gun

Instructions:

Cut three 12 inch by 5 inch strips of cellophane.

2. Create a fringe effect with each strip by cutting parallel lines down the full strip, making sure never to cut all the way to the edge of your material.

3. Once all 3 strips are fringed, take your dowel and begin gluing one strip on to the top of the dowel.. Starting on one side and twisting it around the skewer, adding a dab of glue when needed to keep it in place.

5. Do that for each strand creating 3 tiered layers at the top of the skewer.

6. Add 1 thin piece of cellophane around the bottom of the 3 tiers to add the finish touch!

This projects also makes for great cake toppers! Or use them for your New Year’s Eve party centerpieces, drink stirrers, tablescape and more.

For more creative New Year’s ideas, check out our New Year’s Eve archives.

DIY Accordion Christmas Village

Brittany

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December 7, 2020

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Today we are sharing another DIY Christmas Village (similar to one we posted last week), but this one is an accordion style and you can use the templates right here from our shop to either hand cut it out OR use a craft cutting machine to do it for you.

I just love the anticipation of Christmas, and a cute village on your mantel with fluffy cotton ball clouds and bottle brush trees just adds to the magic of the season. I like to put little twinkle lights behind the village for an added glow. Here, I added in our heirloom nativity (you can see the tutorial here!)

With this particular DIY Christmas Village, you only need to do a bit of assembly so it’s for someone who has only a sitcom’s worth of time to work on something. This village can sit as a lovely silhouette in your windowsill for passerby to admire.