Egg Crafts for Easter: How to Make a Doll

As kids, my sister and I loved making egg crafts for Easter. Egg shells are free and we just needed a few scraps from mom’s sewing basket. Once, mom made a beautiful Japanese doll from an egg.

I started to think about that Japanese doll recently, and I wanted a simplified version Miss T and I could craft together.

I came up with a minimalist doll using a hollowed-out eggshell and cardstock cylinder. Kids can customize their dolls using different-colored eggshells, yarn, and bits of trim.

Make chocolate Easter egg nests for your table.

Egg Craft Dolls

Materials Needed

• Empty eggshells from hollowed-out eggs (see how-to below)
• Fine point indelible markers for eyes and lips
• Yarn for hair
• 1 1/2-inch wide strip of printed cardstock for clothes, about 8 inches long
• Decorative elements: scraps of felt, cardstock, ribbons, tulle, and artificial flowers
• White school glue (Elmers)
• Tape runner (optional) or stapler

Tools Needed

• Regular scissors
• Small, sharp scissors
• Small glue sponge or inexpensive small paint brush for applying glue
• Bamboo skewer for spreading glue in small spaces

Here are more fun and easy craft projects you can make with your grandkids.

Make the Head

Start by drawing a face on the egg using indelible markers. The eggshell will not absorb the ink all at once, so give it time to dry before proceeding; otherwise the features will smear.

Next, make the hair. Loop a length of yarn back and forth, and tie with another strand of yarn. Trim off loops if you want straight hair, keep loops for curlier hair, and trim a clump of strands shorter than the rest if you want bangs.

Using white school glue, attach the hair to the eggshell head.

Make the Body

The body is just a cylinder of cardstock made by rolling a strip to a size that can accommodate an eggshell head, when propped on the body. Overlap excess cardstock. Secure the cylinder using a tape runner or staple in place.

Add bits of lace, ribbon, or paper decorations to the cylinder to decorate the body.

Assemble the Doll

Prop the doll on the cylinder body and add accessories:

• Fascinators–use felt or cardstock cut into a circle or oval and glue to the head at a tilt.
• To make a fascinator with a veil, sandwich a bit of scrunched-up netting between two cardstock circles and glue in place.
• For flowered felt hats, secure flower by making two small slits in the felt and thread the flower stem through.
• For a brimmed hat, use a glue stick cap for a small hat or a small plastic bottle cap for a larger hat. Glue the cap to a cardstock circle slightly larger than the cap.

How to Blow out an Egg for Egg Crafts

To empty out the contents of a raw egg:

• Wash the egg thoroughly with soap and warm water–you will be putting your mouth to the egg shell.
• Set the egg in a small, shallow dish so it won’t roll away.
• Prick the egg at both the top and bottom with a large needle or T-pin. To do this, hold the needle in place with one hand and use an object, such as a small meat mallet or hammer to tap the needle gently until it breaks through the shell.

• Use a bamboo skewer to enlarge the holes by rocking it back and forth gently in the holes; make the hole larger on the wide end of the egg.
• Pierce the yolk with the bamboo skewer.
• Putting your mouth to the narrow end of the egg, and positioning the egg over a bowl, blow until you blow the egg out the other end. This may take a bit of practice.
• Rinse out the shell, set it in an empty egg carton with larger hole down, and allow to dry.

More Egg Crafts

While Miss T worked at one end of the dining table making dolls, N worked at the other end making cascarones, Mexican confetti eggs. He painted the eggs with acrylic paints and filled the eggshells with confetti.

We’ve adopted this Mexican tradition of confetti eggs for fiestas, and now we make cascarones every Easter to crush over each other for good luck, an activity that fits well with our special lunch and egg hunt.

These eggshells are much easier to empty out; no blowing is needed. Simply tap the egg gently with a table knife to crack the top and peel enough shell to drain out the egg. Follow my complete, step-by-step instructions for making cascarones.

When Miss T and I finished the egg dolls, we joined N to paint more eggs and stuff them with confetti.

I think we’re all set for Easter.

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