Making Easter Bonnets for Boys and Girls!

Making Easter bonnets is one of those traditional activities which make me smile; I love the markers as we move through the year which herald the beginning of each new season! If you’re looking for festive Easter treats while you are bonneting, try our no-bake Chocolate Rice Krispie Cake Nests. They’ll go beautifully with this chicken sitting on her nest of straw!

Although they are too old for bonnets now at 15 and 16, my biggest boys have come up with some corking ideas in the past! (excuse picture quality these pre-date me having a decent camera!)

I scratched my head a bit, trying to work out the best way to make Easter Bonnets for boys. Making them comic took away the ‘bonnet’ label and allowed them to happily join in!

Last year we were obsessed with pom-pom making and our bonnet making was an indulgent Pom fest!

Our pom-pom makers make pom-pom making really quick and easy although we do still resort to traditional cardboard circles for larger creations.

We decided to use an old sun hat from the dressing up box and to decorate it with bunny rabbits and chicks, you can buy plain Easter bonnets to decorate if you haven’t got one handy! Each chick and bunny was made from one large pom-pom and one small one. We left a long thread on the larger one and used a darning needle to push it up through the closely packed centre of the smaller one, pulling up tightly and tying it off to hold the head in place.

We cut triangles of white felt and smaller ones of pink for the bunnies’ ears and tiny pink triangles for noses. The chicks had triangles of deep orange felt for their beaks and all were glued in place. We got satisfyingly sticky popping spots of PVA glue onto our little creatures and then sticking black seed beads into place for little beady eyes!

Gluing them onto the hat wasn’t such a success with all their pom-pom fluffery and they kept making a break for freedom. While this was very amusing for teenage boys it wasn’t going to work as a bonnet. I sewed them into place so they couldn’t hop off! (You could use a glue gun which would also work)