A Very Merry Un-Easter: Recyled Easter Eggs

If you celebrate Easter complete with bunnies and baskets, by the time the holiday is over you will have a bunch of those ubiquitous plastic pull-apart Easter eggs lying around. You could save them for next year or—you could recycle them into a year-round game rife with magic, mystery, exploration and discovery.

The name of the game? Eggstraordinary.

The game

Game instruction label

Materials needed: 8 plastic pull-apart eggs and one empty plastic CD container (the kind that hold 50 CDs). For a free download of a one-page PDF containing labels you can cut and paste to create your own game container, click here.

Step one: Decoupage some plastic eggs. I have used assorted paper from Chinatown for these, but use any patterned tissue paper that appeals to you. Crumpling and then tearing the paper and/or snipping along edges with scissors before gluing helps overcome the challenge of gluing onto an oval object. Note that I've used contrasting bands around the opening edges to make it neater and easier to keep the edges clear.

Eight eggs fit perfectly into a 50-disc CD container. Note that to open and close the container you turn it upside down and twist. If you try to open it while it is right-side-up, all of the eggs will fall out.

Eggs in the bin

Eggs

Eggs

And more eggs

Eggstraordinary Game Options

Delightful Surprises

Find small treasures, tiny objects, and lovely little things around your house or elsewhere and tuck them inside the eggs so you'll have them ready. When you go to someone's house, hide an egg in a place they will eventually find it (in the medicine cabinet, under a bed pillow, in the shower stall, atop a plate in the kitchen cabinet). Imagine their surprise at finding an unexpected bit of magic and mystery.

Gather and Give Away

Divide the eggs equally among the number of players. Each player should remember what their starting eggs look like (this is important). Players separate and search outside in nature for beautiful little finds - a bit of moss, an appealing twig, a nice stone, a tiny flower. They tuck their finds into their eggs. Particularly creative players can come up with complete little nature assemblages inside their eggs. 

Players regather and are instructed to go out into a designated area one by one to hide their eggs. Step three is the treasure hunt, where all players head out to hunt down the eggs. You may only gather as many eggs as you started with (e.g., if you started with two, you only gather two), and you don't gather your own eggs. When all eggs are found, players regroup for stage four. Go in rounds and have individual players open their egg finds one by one as others in the group ooh and aah over the innards.

Gather and Give Away Flea Market Variation

Follow the instructions above, but have players track down the contents of the give-away eggs at a fela market or thrift store, setting a one or two dollar limit total for all innards. Think in terms of a nice button, a single dangley earring, a vintage handkerchief, a scrap of lace.

Feel free to come up with your own Eggstraordinary game variations themed to the beach, family travel, foreign travel—the possibilities are endless.