Craft an Egg Carton Cross

Above is a unique 3-D, memorial, cross craft for Sunday School students, grades 3, 4, and 5.

      I glued the egg carton parts to a sturdy piece of cardboard and left my construction to dry overnight. Then, I used a toothpick to gently poke many holes into the mache carton cups so that I would be able to insert the silk flowers later. Give students a wide variety of discarded old magazines and recycled paper to tear into small pieces. Glue these randomly to the background of the cross picture to assimilate foliage. Then, dismantle a spray or two of silk flowers and poke these buds into the holes on the cross. All the while adding a generous application of tacky white glue to the ends of each flower before pushing it into each hole. Leave this project to dry over night. In the end, each student will have a unique, three dimensional cross to decorate their home with for Easter Sunday. 

• "Raise Up The Cross!" coloring page
• Color Easter Lilies for Lent

About Egg Cartons

      An egg carton or egg box (the British English term) is a carton designed for carrying and transporting whole eggs.

A filled egg carton.

      These cartons have a dimpled form in which each dimple accommodates an individual egg and isolates that egg from eggs in adjacent dimples. This structure helps protect eggs against stresses exerted during transportation and storage by absorbing a lot of shock and limiting the incidents of fracture to the fragile egg shells. An egg carton can be made of various materials, including foamed plastics such as Styrofoam, clear plastic or may be manufactured from recycled paper and molded pulp by means of a mechanized papier-mâché process.

      Before its invention, eggs were carried in egg baskets. The egg carton was invented in 1911 by newspaper editor Joseph Coyle of Smithers, British Columbia, to solve a dispute between a local farmer and hotel owner in Aldermere, near present day Telkwa, in British Columbia, over the farmer's eggs often being delivered broken.

      The egg carton "box" was further developed by H.G.Bennett (Riseley UK) during the 1950s and became the norm for egg transportation during this period.

      Unlike many products, trademarks and advertisements for egg brands are usually printed on the food container itself rather than on a separate container (as with breakfast cereals). This single-layer, distinctive packaging distinguishes egg cartons from different producers or quality on the retail shelf.