Easter Wreath with Crepe Paper Flowers

Make your house more festive and colorful with this easy and fun DIY wreath with crepe paper flowers and a fluffy bunny. It's a great spring craft project for kids and adults, just in time for Easter!

I always had mixed feelings about Easter. I grew up in a non-religious family, so for us Easter was mostly a chance to enjoy the time off work/school and have a nice feast to eat all together.

As a kid, the thing I liked the most was getting all the chocolate eggs from family members. Usually, a kid ends up with 5-10 chocolate eggs, depending on how big their family is. And I don't mean the small eggs, we're talking about 20-30 cm (8-12 inches) high chocolate eggs. White, dark, milk chocolate, with nuts, praline, or a mix of all. And inside, there is always a gift. A little toy for kids and cheap gadgets or jewelry for teenagers and adults.

When I moved to the Netherlands I was sad to discover that this tradition is strictly Italian. Here they only sell the teeny tiny chocolate eggs (still delicious, but no gift).

Easter Decorations

Since we don't have kids yet and we rarely go back to Italy for Easter (it's allergy season and I'm allergic to acacia trees which cover my town with an inch high carpet of pollen), we usually just have a nice lunch at home and then maybe walk around or visit another city, depending on the weather.

I usually never decorate for Easter as much as I do for Christmas (oh, I love Christmas), but this year I wanted to try something with crepe paper. I used to use a lot of crepe paper as a kid and I remember it being very fragile but also making very nice decorative flowers.

So I went to my favorite craft shop to collect all the stuff I needed to create the idea I had on my mind. I wanted to do a bunny butt coming out of a flower wreath and initially, I thought about making a big white pompom with wool until I found this spectacular fluffy pipe cleaner.

It took me a few days to make all the flowers, trying a variety of techniques and I found this one (the easiest one) to be the prettiest.

What do you need:

• 1 White Fur Ribbon or Wire
• 1 7cm (3") Styrofoam Ball
• 1 25cm (10") Styrofoam Wreath Ring
• Light Green Crepe Paper
• Dark Green Crepe Paper
• White Crepe Paper
• Yellow Crepe Paper
• Orange Crepe Paper
• Pink Crepe Paper
• Red Crepe Paper
• 1 Pink Foam sheet
• Transparent tape
• Scissors
• Glue Gun
• Pipe Cleaners, any color

Instructions:

To make the Bunny:

Bend the fuzzy stem in a spiral, using the foam ball as a guide. Use the glue gun to glue the fur to the ball.
Cut out from the remaining stem 2 pieces long approx. 18cm (7") and 1 piece long 5 cm (2"). Bend the longer pieces in half to make the back paws and make a tight spiral with the shorter piece to make the tail.
Trim a little bit of the fur on the paws if necessary, then glue them to the furball. Glue also the tail on top.
Use the template to cut out the toe beans from the pink foam and glue them to the paws.

To make the Paper Flowers and Leaves:

Cut out circles from the crepe paper, with a diameter of 8-10cm (3"-4"). You can use one color or overlap 2-3 sheets of different colors.
Punch a hole in the center with the pipe cleaner and bend it over on top to block it. Cut the stem about 2.5cm (1") long.
Ruffle the paper around the stem and use the tape to hold it.
For the leaves, cut a rounded triangle of dark green paper, then ruffle it on the short side and use the tape or the pipe cleaner to hold it.

To assemble:

Cut a long strip of light green paper and wrap the foam ring, using the tape to hold it underneath.
When you're happy with your flowers, insert them in the foam ring punching the stem through the foam.
Continue until you completely fill the ring with flowers. Add the leaves here and there between the flowers. When all complete, add the bunny in the center.

Note: In place of the white fuzzy stem or fuzzy pipe cleaner, you can also use a crafting fluffy boa or some fake fur fabric. Be creative with whatever you can find!

Note II: Why not make this into a wreath? Just glue or tape the bunny to the wreath and hand it on your door. But only inside, as crepe paper is not water resistant!