Bless Carol Duvall and her easy-to-fold paper boxes. They led us to
create this simple but stunning Easter Bunny Basket, perfect for candy
tidbits or a single dyed egg at each Easter table setting. Yep - the
basket is two-sided and the bunny ears meet in the middle to form the
handles!
You may have seen the miniature paper boxes
in Carol's book, Paper
Crafting with Carol Duvall. You can make a dozen
in a few
minutes. The other great thing about this craft is how versatile it is.
Do you want to embellish your basket with paint, stamps, stickers,
bows, flowers, raffia, or bat guano? Go for it!
Or, keep your basket simple and spend a little
time decorating the perfect egg to nestle in it.
The
wonderful vintage image of the Easter rabbit comes from an
Easter greeting, circa
1910. You'll see the link below to
download the Free vintage images as a PDF file.
Materials
for this Easter Bunny Basket
Vintage
Images
(FREE PDF download), printed on matte photo paper.
Paper, 8.5" X 11", pastel yellow, pink and/or
blue (see Tips).
Ribbon, 1/4", pastel yellow, pink and/or blue.
Tacky craft glue (like Aleene's).
Spray glue or glue stick.
Pencil.
Ruler.
Bone folder.
Scissors.
Craft knife or small manicure scissors.
Self-healing mat.
Instructions
(For
these instructional photos, we are using a striped-pattern paper with a
white back so the fold can be more clearly seen)
Trim the paper to an 8.5" X 8.5" square. On the back of the paper, use
a ruler to draw light pencil guidelines diagonally
from the corners. (You
are marking the center point of the paper, so you can
just draw short lines to form a small cross in the center, if you wish.)
Fold
all four corners in to meet at the center point, using the bone folder
to form crisp creases.
Fold
one of the side edges in to the center and crease with the bone folder.
Unfold it, and repeat the folding and creasing with the remaining three
sides.
Unfold
one flap and make a diagonal cut from the corner to the first crease
line, as shown in
the photo. Make an identical cut on the other side of the flap. Unfold
the flap on the opposite side and make two identical cuts on that side.
Fold
the two side points on the first flap in toward each other.
Bring
the sides of the box up and fold the two end tabs in toward each other.
Bring
the top of the flap over the tabs and down into the box. Do
the same at the
other end of the box. Pull up the flaps now inside the bottom
of the box, rub a coin-sized circle of glue stick under them,
and press them back down.
Done!
You now have a little box (or Easter Bunny basket), 3.25" X 3.25" X 1.5". Time to
work on the bunny.
Glue an 8.5" X 11" piece of pastel
paper to the back of the bunny image with glue stick or spray glue
and let dry (see Tips).
Use
a craft knife and cutting mat (or manicure scissors) to cut out the
double-bunny image. Don't forget between the ears!
Cut
a 13" length of ribbon and glue it around the bottom edge of the
basket. Position the ribbon seam in the center of a side that will have
a bunny.
Tie two small double bows and cut off the
tails. (On the blue basket, we used pink ribbon and pink paper backing
on the bunny; yellow ribbon and backing is on the
pink basket; and blue ribbon and backing is on the yellow
basket).
Glue
one bunny head to the side of the basket, just above
the ribbon seam. Position it carefully so the ears are
perfectly vertical and the other bunny head can be positioned on the
opposite side of the basket. Hold or clamp the first bunny until the
glue is dry. Glue the other bunny head to the other side of the box and
clamp until dry. Glue the two ribbon bows on the edging ribbon, just
beneath each bunny face.
Put some easter grass or florist moss in your
Easter Bunny Basket, and add the perfect dyed egg - or a wad of
jellybeans or marshmallow Peeps. Cute, cute cute!!!
Tips
The better your paper, the better your Easter
bunny basket. We used a good-quality printer paper, like photocopy
paper, but a small-print patterned paper would be great, too. It is
important that the paper be opaque and fold crisply. Opaqueness rules
out translucent papers like vellum, or very
thin papers (unless you don't mind the pencil marks and
box-folding
innards showing through). Foldability rules out very heavy
paper, heavily textured paper, some coated papers, overly-painted
paper, and the like.
You can decorate the paper before or after you
fold it.
Any technique (paint, stamps, stickers) will work, as long as
the paper can still fold cleanly. One technique that looks smashing
is comb-painting a small basket weave pattern!
The best way to adhere the pastel paper
securely to the back of the bunny image is with spray glue. But, spray
glue is messy and a pain in the neck. We prefer the quick and
easy glue stick method: Put the bunny image up against a window glass,
so you can clearly see the image through the back of the paper. Rub the
glue stick thoroughly over the back of the image. Lay the image face
down on a table and place the pastel paper on it. Press them
together until the glue dries.