If you love Eggland’s Best eggs, you’re probably aware of how versatile they are – a great addition to any recipe or meal, THE best tasting and most nutritious egg – but did you know EB can be a fun part of family time outside of mealtime? There are so many great ways to re-use our cartons, but here are four of our favorites that you can try with your child. We hope you have fun trying these egg carton upcycling projects together, and even creating new ones! We would love to see what you create with your EB cartons – tag your egg carton projects on Instagram @egglandsbest so we can see and share your creative ideas!
EB Egg Carton Palette
Teaching your child that anything can be used for art (esp. an EB egg carton) and we’re only limited to our own imaginations is a great lesson for them to learn early on in life. Our cartons are perfect for a nice afternoon art session with your little ones. Another big bonus of using your leftover Eggland’s Best carton is that the cells of the carton, actually hold more paint than a normal paint palette-perfect for those little fingers- AND our cartons hold water! Ohhh..and did we mention the cleanup is under 5 mins-unless you have a young Jackson Pollock in your household, of course.
Time: 2 min.
Materials:
- A clean, empty EB egg carton
- Non-toxic acrylic paints or finger paints
- Paintbrushes or your fingers
- A blank canvas or paper for your masterpiece
- A water cup for rinsing
Instructions:
- Use each egg slot to hold your paint colors and keep them separate – be sure to leave a few empty for mixing colors, though!
- Let your creative juices flow and show us your paintings on Instagram by tagging @egglandsbest
EB Egg Carton Mermaids
This mermaid craft is truly FINTASTIC! Your child will have so much fun making this mermaid craft this summer-or really any time of year! These mermaids are perfect for imaginative play and the creative process is great for strengthening those fine motor muscles.
Time: 30 min
Materials:
- Clean, empty EB foam egg carton
- Acrylic paints
- Paintbrush
- Craft glue
- Construction paper and/or fabric scraps
- Scissors
- Pipe cleaner or popsicle stick
Instructions:
- Begin by cutting the egg carton into individual egg cells. You want the egg sections to be trimmed enough to have a soft curved “fish scale” shape
- Paint 5-7 of the egg cells any color you’d like and let dry 15-20 min. (feel free to add glitter!)
- Cut out your mermaid’s body from the construction paper
- Glue body to a popsicle stick or pipe cleaner for support
- Cut out hair from construction paper or fabric scraps and glue to the back of the mermaid body
- Cut out mermaid clothing as desired from fabric scraps or construction paper – if you have shells or beads, you’d like to use, those work too!
- Glue clothing to body and let dry
- Cut slits through the top of each painted, dried egg cell and arrange, stacking each cell on top of each other in your desired order for the “tail”
- Put the popsicle stick or pipe cleaner through the slits to connect the mermaid body to the tail cells
- Secure at the bottom of the tail and add a construction paper tail, if desired, with glue
EB Egg Carton Turtles
Recycle one of your empty Eggland’s Best egg cartons to make these adorable little critters! This is turttley the perfect craft for all young children, and parents who want to do fun craft activities with their child, but not break the bank! This craft uses materials lying around the house and is a great example that you can have fun without having to go buy supplies from the store. You can even get creative and create other adorable critters-let your child’s imagination run wild!
*BONUS- once the turtles are made your tiny tot will be busy playing with them for hours!
Time: 30 min.
Materials:
- Clean, empty EB foam egg carton
- Various acrylic paints
- Pom-poms
- Craft wiggle eyes
- Pipe cleaner
- Paintbrush
- Scissors
- Craft glue
Instructions:
- Begin by cutting the egg carton into individual egg cells
- Paint your egg cells any color or colors you’d like and let dry (feel free to add glitter!)
- Add a pom-pom head and/or feet by gluing pom-poms to painted, dried egg cells
- Add eyes by gluing wiggle eyes to pom-pom head with craft glue
Sorting Activity
Children have an uncanny desire to make sense of their world. So, it makes total sense that they enjoy sorting activities. It allows them to make matches and categorize items as a solution to organize what they know.
Sorting is a basic systematic skill commonly taught to children as part of preschool or kindergarten. The process of sorting requires a child to analyze data, find relationships among objects, and apply rules to groups. Recognizing groups of objects and how to classify them based on similarities and differences requires logical thinking, which is important in the development of children.
It’s also a child’s first step into the very most basic form of algebra. Plus, when a child learns a new skill, they want to practice it over and over, keeping them busy for long periods of time – that’s a win for any busy parent!
Time: 5 min.
Materials:
- Clean, empty EB foam egg carton
- Large Buttons, Beads, noodles etc.
Instructions:
- Begin putting all of the items to get sorted in a bowl or on the table
- Let your child start to sort the items by shape or color and place them in each egg cell