Make a beautiful and easy flower bouquet!

These adorable egg carton flowers are designed as a kids’ craft, but grown ups will love them too! If you prefer, you can check out my paper flower templates. Disclosure: this post contains commissioned links.

These egg carton flowers were originally shared on June 24 2016 and have been updated to make them current.

As an artist and avid crafter, I have done crafts with my younger siblings, nieces, total strangers at event and camps… and always dreamed of the day I’d craft with my own child.

But M tends to get upset sometimes when his hands get dirty. He loves wet, and doesn’t mind a bit of outdoorsy dirt, but when it comes to hands covered in paint, it just doesn’t seem to appeal to him.

Just the other day, we had to test out these new neon paints we got, and he had the time of his life. He did not mind his dirty hands in the least. We hit a new milestone. I knew the time had come to finally sit down and paint with my son. So yesterday we made these cool egg carton flowers, and today he asked me to do it again.

Confession time: I am not the perfect mom. I like when my crafts come out pretty. I also always disliked the concept of “adult-created kid crafts” that involve the adult so much more than the child.

Which is why I enjoyed this so much – I prepared the parts, we painted them together, and we assembled it “together”, but it’s totally recognizable as what he painted.

He takes great pride in it and definitely recognizes them as something he made – because he painted the actual final form.

Another thing is, because we did it TOGETHER it didn’t seem to matter so much. I wasn’t correcting his work, or adding on to it. We were doing it as a team effort. And I got the pretty I like when I craft and he had the time of his life painting with Mommy.

So much so that I know I’ll be laden down with Mommy guilt next time I try painting all by myself.

These egg carton flowers are really adaptable. What I mean is, before the whole “I just crafted with my baby – sob!” stage set in, I really kept thinking I should do it alone. Paint them pretty with rich acrylics instead of translucent neon kid paints. Wrap the dowels in florist tape and use that to assemble the parts too. Add a touch of ribbon maybe. Make them look real.

While the value of turning this into a collaborative mother-son craft was definitely worth it, there is also room for older children, teens, and even adults to make use of this tutorial.

Two years later, these egg carton flowers are still sitting on our bookshelf, and M, now four, remembers making them. There are moments like these that simply stick. And despite the fact that I mess up often, and can make a list a mile long of my parenting mistakes, I know I’ve done right by him with this one.

What you need to make egg carton flowers:

An egg carton such as this one
Wooden dowels (thickness doesn’t matter much)
Washi tape
Strong scissors or utility knife
Paint
Paintbrushes
Smock

How to make flowers out of egg cartons:

1. (Adult) Cut your egg carton as follows:

Split the base into three sets of four. Cut around it halfway through, but leave that center part nice ‘n long, with the hole in the center.

The covers tend to have these leaf-shaped holes so that you can “peek” at your egg, I guess? Cut around them in a leaf shape. If you have a solid cover, you can simply cut out regular leaf shapes.

Cut the fronts and backs of the base and cover into long strips, and cut fringe into them. Don’t worry if its a bit broken up.

2. Paint your parts!

I let M choose the colors for the flowers (well, some. He chose blue and purple naturally and I added in pink…) He didn’t paint it perfectly but it really doesn’t matter (see, I’m growing up!)

We painted the centers yellow.

And the leaves green, of course. I started painting the stems/dowels green too but unless it’s a deep acrylic, it doesn’t show very well.

3. Assemble your flower!

Start by taping the end of the fringe to your dowel.

Roll it up and tape it shut

Ask your toddler of course to stick the dowel through the flower slot that your center falls out in that hole in the middle. It will stay pretty well on its own.

Tape the base of your flower to the dowel, and then tape on a few leaves to the stem – close to the top, or just below the flower, whichever you prefer.

And your egg carton flowers are ready to arrange beautifully in a vase!

And that’s all for now. I did add some white vase filler to it to anchor the flowers. I love how this craft uses almost the entire carton, and makes the most of the various parts!