recycle project no. 11 - egg carton turned into a heart

I'll be the first to admit that even before Valentine's day is here I start getting sick of seeing hearts everywhere. I've decided not to be such a heart hater this year, as you can also see by my header, (plus little C loves them) so here is our latest effort in putting together a recycling project. It may not be the fanciest but at least we got together and made something for fun and I finally got the idea of using an egg carton in some sort of wall art piece.



Materials
- One egg carton - not the styrofoam kind (cut and use only the bottoms of the egg carton)
- Red paint
- Background card stock

I cut the bottom 3/4" of each egg holder, we painted them and glued them on card stock. When everything was dry we also painted the spaces between the cut egg holders. That's it!

I'm sorry I don't have any photos of the process. It was too dark here to take anything decent.

Tips & Variations
- Make sure that when you cut the egg holders that all your edges are on the same level. If they're not it will be difficult to glue them to the card stock.
- We only used one egg carton because our frame wasn't large enough for something more elaborate but I would be willing to bet that this will look better if at least two egg cartons are used. As it is, I think the frame we used is still too snug. I like to have a nice wide border around a piece like this.
- If you don't have a handy frame available attach a ribbon to the heart and hang it on its own.

Enjoy!

12 comments:

  1. Cute! I could see myself making something like this. At first I thought you had red egg cartons where you live. Though I have seen pink ones!

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  2. i love this too!

    i am so interested: i've noticed you frame alot of your work - do you rotate your work, or do you leave your artwork up once and for all?

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  3. I absolutely love this. It is right up my alley. I love to see different things for Valentines.

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  4. I loved this so much I entered it over at the Winter Bazaar, I hope that's okay with you :)

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  5. This is FABULOUS. I have an empty egg carton in my recycle bin SCREAMING to be made into a heart. Thank you for an easy, afternoon activity.

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  6. I think the best touch is that you framed it!

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  7. I love the project but especially the fact that you framed it.

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  8. Terrific project! I love the shade of red... it seems so deep and intense. Did you use a certain type of paint, or was the egg carton a certain color to get that result?

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  9. We loved doing this. Thanks for the great idea!

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  10. Thank you all! I'm so glad you like the project.

    Boliyou - We used acrylic paint. I think the color stayed rich because of the egg carton itself. You'll notice a slight change of the color where I painted between the egg carton pieces. The paper absorbed the paint differently there.

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  11. So cute! Thanks a bunch for sharing this idea.

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  12. The hardest part is to find the non-plastic cartons - I love egg carton crafts. I hope it's okay that I added a link to this green Valentine craft from Kids Valentine Crafts at Squidoo.

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