Crafts Beautiful - Quick & Crafty - Let's Make Cards Magazine

Easy-to-make but sophisticated looking, have a go at creating these Easter-theme embellishments. Use the hen as a topper on a seasonal card or scatter the birds around the garden to show little egg-hunters where to find their treasure. Try hanging them on a large house plant or stringing them onto ribbon.

Card

1. Paint a plywood hen in cream with orange legs and a beak. Colour the crown and wattle in pink. Use pale green to write ‘happy Easter’ on the side of the hen, add polka dots in lilac.

2. Paint the eye in white with a blue dot in the centre. Leave to dry. Mount pink gingham in the card aperture using double-sided tape. Glue the painted hen onto the front of the card.

Wooden Chick

1. Take a blank wooden chick and paint the body with two coats of white. Daub the legs pale blue, the base green, and the feet orange. Leave to dry. Once dry, paint the beak orange and the crown pink. Paint stripes on the legs in different colours.

2. On the front of the bird, paint an orange circle surrounded by five lilac circles to make a flower. Leave to dry. Decorate it by painting a small blue dot in the centre and several small ones between the lilac petals. Add tiny dots on the feet with cream colour. Finish by gluing an orange tail feather onto the back.

easter birds

1. Colour six flat plywood birds in a different shade, front and back. Leave to dry. On each one paint a different letter so that together they spell ‘Easter’. Paint the beaks orange, and the eyes white.

2. Once the eyes are dry add a small brown dot in the middle. On two of the birds, decorate with small polka dots. On another two decorate with small hearts in two different colours. And on the final two, paint tiny flowers in various shades. Once one side is dry, repeat on the other side, and leave to dry again.

3. Cut six lengths of thin wire 10cm long. Thread through the hole at the top of the bird and twist. Make a loop and twist at the top. Curl the ends of the wire. Use strong glue to stick feathers onto each side of the birds as a tail.