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!

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!) Making them comic took away the ‘bonnet’ label and allowed them to join in. When they made these their school had an Easter bonnet parade and it was wonderful to see the variations all the children had come up with!

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)

We think it looks very sweet

Especially on her head! I can’t believe how much she has changed in just a year!

Making Easter Bonnets is one of those traditions which has quietly faded from general practice so I would love to see any bonnets you come up with. With that in mind I am going to be running a virtual Easter Bonnet parade. If you do make a bonnet please come and link it to the linky which I will put up on Thinly Spread on Good Friday (March 29th 2013)!

This year’s Thinly Spread bonnets are currently in the planning stage, watch this space for the results!

This is an updated version of a post which first appeared last year on the NetMums Blog