This is one of my favourite Easter craft ideas to do with the kids. Give the children a plain piece of paper. Pour some paints into a palette. Roll up sleeves and ask the children to dip one finger in some paint and make lots of fingerprints all over the paper spaced out a bit. Little fingerprints look remarkably like egg shapes. Leave to dry.

Now for the fun part, using felt tip pens or pencils ask the children to turn each fingerprint into an Easter chick character. Using an orange felt tip pen, draw on a beak. Then add eyes, noses, mouths, arms, legs, ears, glasses, hats, beards, big boots etc with a variety of coloured felt tip pens. Make them happy, angry, sad, silly. See how many different egg characters they can make. Loads of fun!

Great on a card to send someone special at Easter time!

Wrap elastic bands around hard boiled eggs, then brush them with food colouring. When dry, remove rubber bands. The parts of the egg covered with rubber bands will not be coloured. Once the rubber bands are removed, you can brush the egg with a different colour if you want to add a contrast. Kids will enjoy making different patterned eggs.

Sponge Painted Eggs

Cut a sponge into small pieces (for little hands). Pour some acrylic paint into a shallow dish or palette. Dip the sponge into the paint and dab the hard boiled egg with it. Start with your darker colours first for the best effect. Wait for that colour to dry and then add another colour. Small kids will really enjoy this activity and they should look beautiful when finished. Put the egg in an egg cup to dry. Do NOT eat eggs that have been painted!

Inflate a small balloon for each child. Glue coloured paper cut into small pieces all over the outside of the balloon. There should be at least two complete layers with no gaps. Allow to dry (overnight) by hanging the balloons up by the tied knot. If you want to draw decorations on your egg, do it before you remove the balloon. You could stick a layer of shiny paper on for a great glitzy finish. 

When dry, cut the knot of the balloon off, deflating it and remove the balloon if possible, leaving a beautiful paper egg. Carefully cut a small hole at the top of the egg and fill with chocolates or sweeties. You could tie a ribbon round it with a lovely big bow. Makes a very special gift for someone.
Have fun!

• Fold a piece of coloured A4 card in half.
• Draw a large Easter Egg shape on the front remembering to use the folded edge within the shape so that you can open your egg shaped card.
• Give the kids some children's scissors to cut out the card.
• Place your selection of collage material in the middle of the table for the kids to choose.
• Position and stick small pieces are various materials all over the front of the card using PVA glue.  Make it eggstra special and colourful!
• Allow to dry flat.
• Write a lovely Easter message inside.