Welcome to another Wacky Workshops Project, Easter bonnets to make.

It’s so easy to fork out your money and buy all the trappings to make a cute Easter bonnet for your kids, but why deprive them of all the creative enjoyment?

These projects are fun, easy to make and don’t have to break the budget.

The Easter Bonnets Tradition

Easter is known as a time for renewal and the tradition of Easter bonnets began with female churchgoers who were eager to show off their new clothes, including hats, displaying their ‘Sunday best’.

In the English tradition, the notion of getting new clothes on Easter to signify inner growth and renewal dates back to Shakespeare.

The hats often included flowers to celebrate spring.

The tradition really took off in America in the 1870s with the New York City Easter Parade when women would parade their new hats as they walked along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

During the 1940s, up to one million people took part in the parade, helped along no doubt by the popularity of the 1948 film, Easter Parade, starring Fred Astaire and Julie Garland.

These days, many schools feature Easter bonnet parades as a fun way for children to display their creativity.

The hats seem to be getting more and more elaborate each year. (I’ve been to several of the school parades to watch my grandchildren).

Some have bought all the sparkly trappings to make lovely hats, but the ones that really stand out to me are the homemade jobs, using simple materials.

While you can buy Easter hat making kits that range in price from $10 for a very basic bunny ear band to $30 for more detailed hats, I think it is a lost opportunity for parents and their children to spend some fun creative time together.

5 Fun and Easy Easter Bonnets to Make

1. The Bunny-Ears Easter Bonnet

It doesn’t get much easier than this – simply cut the centre of a paper plate. Next, cut out bunny ears from light cardboard, colour them and glue them to the plate.

2. The Bunny Butt Easter Bonnet

This one is so cute.

1. Trace around a paper plate on green cardboard and cut out the circle.
2. Create a smaller circle in the centre of the green card.
3. Make zigzag cuts around the inner circle edge and bend the pointed edges up.
4. Glue the green card to the plate.
5. Form a mound of pillow stuffing and glue it onto the plate, in the hole in the green cardboard.
6. Glue cotton balls to the top of the stuffing mound to create a tail.
7. Cut simple bunny feet shape from white card. Then cut little toe shapes from pink paper (or, these could be drawn on with markers or crayons).
8. Glue the bunny feet in place to finish.
9. You can create little carrots as an extra embellishment from orange and green paper.

3. The Fancy Flower Easter Bonnet

This one sounds more complicated than it is.

Simply use a paper plate to trace a circle onto green cardboard.

Create a small circle inside and use a ruler to section it into 8 pie shapes.

Use box cutters to cut along the lines and then fold the pie shapes upwards.

Glue simple flower cut-outs onto the points. Scrunched up tissue creates some colour and fun on the rim of the bonnet.

4. The Bunny and Egg Party Hat

Follow the first few steps in the previous project to create the green hat.

Create extra sections for more ‘grass’.

Adorn with egg, bunny and chick stickers, children’s art and colourful twisted pipe cleaners. NB: Add two strips of paper to the inner circle as a base to glue extra pipe cleaners to.

5. The Bunny Top Hat

I love the simple style of this one and it’s easy to make.

Start by tracing a paper plate on black card and cutting the circle out.

Create a small inner circle and cut out.

Use some of the remaining cardboard to form the sides of the hat. Measure the circumference of the small circle – just use the cardboard to measure and cut and staple the piece to fit, creating a large cardboard roll.

Cut small slits along one short edge of the cardboard roll and bend them backwards.

Place the circle over the top of the cardboard roll and push down.

Glue the slits to the underside of the circle rim.

Draw a simple bunny face and ears on some white cardboard and cut out. Be sure to keep the body long, as that is what you’ll glue to the inside of the hat, so the face and ears stick out.

Bonus Project

It’s easy to create beautiful bonnets using recyclables.

Happy crafting and have a gleeful week, Tamuria.