Beautiful Egg Carton Crafts

I know there are so many different things you can do with egg cartons, from making animals to flowers to the American flag, but today I wanted to focus on some kind of elevated egg carton crafts that maybe older kids (or even adults!) to use those cartons in creative and beautiful ways.

What got me started down this path were these egg carton geodes that kept showing up in my Pinterest feed. They’re from Family & Craft Online, and it’s a very old school presentation but the description of how to do it looks good.

I started looking around for more creative uses of egg cartons and found these fantastic mushrooms from Art Bar Blog. I love how they all look so different even using similar materials. This would be a fun project for a craft day with a group of kids or adults who want to make a little something cute that doesn’t take a ton of time or supplies.

I mentioned flowers above, but the egg carton flowers used to decorate fairy lights in this tutorial from Sendomatic take egg carton flowers to the next level. Or how about this gorgeous rose-bordered mirror from Bliss Bloom Blog? Or these sweet cherry blossoms from Crafts by Amanda? So cute!

In the Playroom made adorable teacup greeting cards, which would be great for Mother’s Day or a tea lover’s birthday, or you can just use them as decoration.

I also adore the egg carton animals from Viridian Art Studios (this one is a video tutorial), which you can make as animals like is shown in the video, or try making self portraits, or illustrate characters from a favorite book, make your teacher as a teacher appreciation gift, the ideas are as endless as the number of egg cartons coming through your house!

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Learning about Flag Day for Kids

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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Have you read?

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