Veronika loves accessorizing, so we made this pretty little necklace for her to wear to Easter brunch this weekend!

To start, we needed to decorate the “beads”, in this case Easter egg shapes cut from construction paper. I chose a few different springtime shades like purple, green, and pink. She loved decorating with markers, telling me very specifically which ones needed dots, lines, or sometimes silly drawings like “slippers”, and took her work quite seriously!

Of course there’s no need to stop at markers. Use crayons, add stickers or sequins, or embellish with whatever else is in your craft bin. To add some sparkle to her jewelry, we squirted a little glue onto each egg and sprinkled with purple glitter. This made the craft significantly more messy, but this girl loves glitter these days.

For some fine motor skills, encourage your child to thread the egg “beads” ribbon to finish the necklace. I punched a hole near the top of each egg, and gave Veronika a yellow ribbon. (Note: You can wrap a bit of tape around the end of a ribbon to make it more like the aglet of a shoelace, for easier threading).

She needed some assistance, but soon was proudly modeling her creation.

“Bunny!” she said with a smile, without any prompting at all.

Veronika has decorated quite a few plastic eggs for Easter this year, but those roly-poly eggs can be difficult to display. Here’s a cute idea from The Toddler’s Busy Book to show off your toddler’s creations!

First, cut an empty paper towel tube into sections, each about 2 inches tall. Next, cut strips of construction paper to wrap around them, and glue on. We chose yellow, green, and pink, all lovely springtime colors. I don’t normally use hot glue for a material as thin as paper, but in this case it cut down on mess and drying time.

Now it was Veronika’s turn to decorate! She loved adding Easter-themed stickers like images of chicks, bunnies, and flowers.

Her favorite step, though, was making the holders sparkle with glitter. I decided the most mess-free way to do this was to pour a little glue into a paper plate and sprinkle the glue with glitter (Veronika chose gold), and then roll the tubes through. Stand upright to dry.

The eggs look great, and won’t wobble over!

I’m always looking for ways that my vegan kids can decorate eggs for Easter without dyeing real hen’s eggs. This particular method works great on plastic eggs!

I set out a few eggs (from Eco Eggs), and Veronika first wanted to explore them, of course. She loved the way they opened and closed, and that favorite toys could nest inside. While she played, I cut small squares of tissue paper in pastel colors.

Pour a little white glue into a small paper cup and add water to thin it slightly. I showed Veronika how to brush this glue mixture on the eggs, and she was quickly an expert.

Now the tissue paper sticks easily, making the eggs look almost like stained glass. We learned quickly, though, that our first egg came out the best. That’s because the more we worked, the more gluey our fingers became, and the tissue tender either to wad up on the egg, or stick to us!

Of course, this only made Veronika gleeful about her pink fingers.

For an easy way to dry the eggs, snip an empty toilet paper tube into a few segments and place the eggs upright until the glue is dry.