Mini Easter Baskets Made with Paper Plates

These lovely mini Easter baskets are easily made by kids or adults alike with inexpensive paper plates.

I wanted to share the sweet DIY mini Easter baskets we’ve been making out of paper plates.

We’ve all been rather obsessed with them, in fact.

Daphne made a half dozen of them to give as gifts to teachers and family (and insisted on adding candy to each before gifting them).

These mini Easter baskets are easy to make and so pretty that I thought you might like to make some, too. So I’m putting together a post with the instructions. I also have a free printable PDF version of the instructions at the bottom of the post to make it extra easy for you.

In addition to the baskets, we’ve been using a slightly modified technique to make beautiful paper bowls, which you may have seen if you follow me on Instagram.

Mini Easter Baskets from a Paper Plate

Actually, I’m going to share two ways to make these. Most of the time we decorated the paper plates and then turned the colorful paper plates into baskets, so I’ll start with that method. But for a few of them, we made the baskets out of plain white paper plates and then painted them. (That second method works best if you don’t want to do the watercolor resist.)

MATERIALS

• Paper plates, the thin kind
• Scissors
• Stapler
• Hole punch
• Pipe cleaners
• Oil pastels or crayons (optional)
• Watercolor paints*
• Washi tape (optional)

*We used liquid watercolor paints, which we LOVE. They are super vibrant and easy to use. However, you can totally use a watercolor paint palette if that’s what you have!

INSTRUCTIONS

Step 1. Draw with Oil Pastels

First, draw on one or both sides of your paper plate with oil pastels. My kids chose to use white but you could use any color.

Step 2. Paint the paper plate

Use watercolor paint to paint over the oil pastel drawing, for a watercolor resist effect.

Daphne chose to add extra paint within the oil pastel lines and enjoyed seeing how it (mostly) stayed within those lines.

Let dry.

Step 3. Paint the other side

After the first side dries, turn the plate over and paint the other side. Let dry again.

Step 4. Embellish

This step is totally optional, but both kids chose to add decorative washi tape to some of their baskets and bowls. I think the first time, it was because a plate had cracked along the center and it was a Beautiful Oops! repair job. But they both liked how it looked so much that they did it on others as well.

Step 5. Make cuts around the circumference

Then, make even cuts all around the circumference of the decorated paper plate, about 2 1/2 inches long. (I just made each cut the length of the scissor blades I was using.)

Step 6.  Staple the basket

To turn your flat paper plate into a basket shape, overlap two adjacent cut strips partway and staple them near the top.

Repeat, stapling each section to the next, until you form a bowl shape.

Step 7. Add a Handle

Use the hole punch to punch two holes at opposite sides of the rim of your basket. Then thread a pipe cleaner through the holes to form a basket handle, wrapping the ends to secure it.

That’s one of Daphne’s baskets above, with bonus staples and an extra thick and fuzzy pipe cleaner for a handle.

Use or Gift Your Baskets!

You can use your colorful little baskets for Easter egg hunts, to gather nature items, to carry treasures, or to give as gifts.

Daphne wanted to give several of her teachers the little baskets and bowls she had made, totally unprompted or aided by me. So she worked diligently to create the right number of baskets etc, make gift tags, and fill them with Easter candy (which she cajoled me into buying).

Variations on the Mini Easter Baskets and Bowls

Variation #1 :: Create basket first

So the first variation is to create the Easter basket out of your paper plate and pipe cleaner first and then decorate it. We did this for some of ours and it worked well.

You can use watercolor paints (or any paints), markers, washi tape, and stickers, etc to decorate your plain baskets. (The oil pastel resist technique doesn’t really work on these pre-shaped baskets since you can’t press hard enough.)

Variation #2 :: Make Bowls 

The second variation is to use this technique to make bowls instead of baskets.

When the whole family makes colorful bowls and baskets from simple white paper plates, watercolors, and washi tape. We’ve decided they are perfect for holding candies, eggs, and treasures. (Daphne has been filling hers and giving them as gifts.)

A post shared by The Artful Parent ❤ Kids Art (@jeanvanthul) on Mar 27, 2017 at 12:56pm PDT

To do this, overlap the cut sections a bit less when stapling them so you end up with a shallower bowl shape. And, of course, skip the handle.

We have been using our pretty paper plate bowls to hold Easter candy and other treats (specifically for my birthday party).

(The chocolates in wrappers went in the bowls as is, but the Cadbury mini eggs and the chocolate-covered almonds went onto small dishes inside the paper plate bowls.)

Here are some of our little Easter baskets and bowls on the wood drying rack.

MORE EASTER ART, ACTIVITIES & CRAFTS

31 Easter Crafts for Kids (+ Art Projects, Easter Activities & More!)

A FREE ACTIVITY SHEET PRINTABLE FOR YOU

To help you do this activity with your kids, I created a FREE printable with the step-by-step instructions for this fun Easter craft.

You can download now with the form above.

Pretty much all you need for these sweet miniature Easter baskets are paper plates!

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