Egg Carton Easter Bunny Puppets

SUPPLIES & TOOLS:

• Cardboard Egg Carton
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Washable School Glue
• Awl or Safety Pin (to poke holes in the carton)
• POP! Plastic Cording
• POP! Pony Beads
• POP! Wood Beads
• Paint Brushes
• White Chalk Paint
• POP! Washable Paint
• Popsicle Sticks
• Hot Glue Gun/Glue Gun Sticks
• Optional: Yarn Needle

DIRECTIONS:

1. Cut up Egg Cartons to make anything that could look like a face; the cups for the eggs, the spires that separate the eggs; anything. Cut out any part that could be two long ears, then just cut any part of the egg carton that could be an interesting shape. Make a small pile of these egg carton pieces.
2. Find a bunny face piece, attach the ears, draw the face on in pencil, and then pull interesting shapes out of the pile that could be the body. Glue anything together as needed.
3. Make two small holes through the center of each egg carton piece.
4. Thread the cording through the egg carton bunny in a V-shape so that the point of the V is at the top (note: A bead at the top will help secure the cording in place and give you something easy to attach the marionette string to (you can place the bead on top of the head as a hat or hide it inside of the head) and the two ends of the cording go through the body and result in two long pieces at the bottom. Here, a yarn needle can be useful for getting the cording through the carton but is not necessary.
5. Add pony beads or wood beads or both to the cording at the bottom for the legs, knot three times at the ends, and trim.
6. Make the arms by tying a long piece of cording somewhere around the neck area and knotting. Then, add beads to make the arms, knot three times at the ends, and trim.
7. Start painting. Pull any additional little pieces from your carton pile to use as accessories (i.e., hats, collars, bows or hair). Glue in place, let dry, and paint over top.
8. While paint is drying, cross the popsicle sticks to make a sort of T, hot glue in place.
9. When the puppet is dry, knot a piece of cording to the head, and knot a piece of cording to each hand. Tie the head cording to the bottom of the T, tie each hand to the ends of the cross of the T. Knot in place and dab a bit of hot glue over the tie to additionally secure. Allow hot glue to dry and the puppet is finished.

JOANN HACKS:

• The paint tends to get sucked in by the egg carton, so to make some painted areas pop out more, first add white chalk paint or another kind of thick, white paint as a base. Let dry and use the washable paint over top! You can play with this method by painting a pattern on the carton with the white paint, letting dry, then painting over the whole area with the washable color paint.
• Sewing clips can help keep pieces together tightly while glue is drying.