Easter Cheap Cheap!

If you watch my Plowmen's Clocks facebook page you may have noticed I changed my banner to a herd of origami bunnies for Easter.  I wanted to make some decorations for the window of the Greyhound Rescue charity shop where I volunteer but didn't want to spend much money.  The bunnies were the first thing I thought of. I used a pad of quite thin pastel coloured craft paper I found at Poundland and a simple instruction video - you can find it here.

Don't they look cute all lined up on this lovely table.  I also made the banner you can see in the top photo. I printed out the letters as big as would fit on an A4 sheet (using an outline font I found in my word processing programme), cut them out, laminated them and strung them on cotton twine.

Next I wanted to add some egg decorations but couldn't find any I liked cheap enough so back again to Poundland where I bought two bags of polystyrene eggs and a packet of pretty tissue paper.

If you want a cheap Easter too here's how I did them. To make it easier and less of a sticky process I stuck the eggs on wooden kebab sticks. Cut strips of tissue paper about three quarters of an inch wide and tear them into pieces about 2 inches long. Use a brush to paint the egg with watered down PVA glue. Make it about the consistency of single cream.

Starting at the bottom stick the strips on using the brush to smooth down the paper and at the same time coating with the glue. Carry on layering the strips until the egg is covered nicely.

Leave them to dry somewhere warm. The tissue is very thin so don't be too rough with the brush. When they dry the paper will shrink a little making a smoother covering but they will still look handmade.

Then decide how you want to display them. I wanted to thread them onto twine to hang down in the window. I used a long doll making needle to pierce and thread twine through the egg.

Lastly I used paper punches to create some quick flower shapes and to make the job even quicker I stapled two flowers back to back between the eggs onto the twine, making sure I didn't trap the twine so I could slide them evenly into position.

I think they look quite effective in the window - you can just about see them in the top photo.  So was that cheap enough for you? Total outlay £4 for the pad of paper, two bags of eggs and a packet of tissue paper.  All from Poundland's Easter range.  Everything else I already had in my craft stash. Poundland also had some lovely little craft projects for the kiddos - I couldn't resist and hope our lot wouldn't have preferred chocolate eggs.

I have to say I was quite impressed with the range on offer.  All very pretty in spring-like colours. I loved the traditional yellow "pipecleaner chicks" and they had black and white lambs too. Hypocritical I know, but I just don't like to think about how much the manufacturers paid their workers to produce such lovely items at such a low cost!!!