Tristan and I made these egg carton bells tree ornaments three years ago when he was two. So last year I made them again with two more two-year-olds. This year the girls only made one each, but last time we went a little crazy and made lots of them in different colours and sent them to family far and near for Christmas gifts. This post contains affiliate links.
We’ve been saving up our egg cartons for a while. We only buy six eggs at a time, but from those little cartons you can only get two of these bells. We have a friend on the case for us saving up larger cartons for some more crafts later in the dreary winter months ahead.
You’ll need the long, pointy bits that rise up between the eggs as you look into the box from the top. Carefully break these out of the box and trim them nicely with a pair of scissors.
Prepare the painting area and gather the children around the table, smocks on and brushes in-hand. Let them paint away on and in these bell-shaped bits, just watching that they don’t squish them too tightly and flatten them. We used gold paint this year, but you can use any colour your little one desires to make the bells nice and festive.
After the paint had dried…we waited until the next day when our little visitor came to play again. We threaded a jingle bell onto the end of a sparkly pipe cleaner that each girl had chosen. I measured it up and put a little bend in it so that part of it would hang down inside the ‘bell’ to allow it to ring. Then I threaded it up through the top of the bell and made a loop with which to hang the bell on the tree.
While the girls were painting their bells, Tristan was also painting a similar egg carton piece to make little “ice cream cones” that can also be hung on the tree by looping a thread loop through the top of the ice cream.
Everyone had fun while working on these egg carton bells and turning some garbage into a new work of art. Now we’re ready to ‘ring’ in the new year!
Don’t forget to have a walk through some of our other Christmas crafts for kids:
- Rudolph pine cone
- Finger print tree decorations
- Rudolph clothespin magnet
- Christmas Ideas page
- Music page
If you’re looking for crafts to go with Christmas story books, I recommend “Christmas Crafts For Kids – 100+ Activities, Crafts, and Recipes based on Children’s Books” You can read our review on it here.
