Turn an egg carton into a peace dove ornament! This makes a pretty addition to your Christmas tree and is the third in our egg carton Christmas ornaments series.
This craft is suitable for older kids, tweens and above. It’s quite fiddly, and the steps appear complicated, but it’s not that difficult.
You might also like our Christmas Patterning Ornaments
There are soooooo many things you can do with an egg carton, right?
We’ve already shared some light-up egg carton Christmas trees and a pair of super cute egg carton angels. Here’s one more… egg carton peace dove ornaments.
If you’re going to go to the trouble of cutting an egg carton to pieces, you may as well use the leftover pieces.
Because my egg carton was white, I had no need to paint my doves. If you are using a coloured egg carton, you will need to paint the pieces white before gluing them together.
I have created an optional free template for the dove shapes; however, the photographs and tutorial video show how to make the craft freehand without a template.
To get your copy of the template, enter your details in the form below and the download will be sent to your email address. Note, you will also be subscribing to our free newsletter.
Cutting egg cartons is far easier with a decent pair of scissors. I always use heavy-duty dressmaking scissors (affiliate link).
Are you ready to get upcycling?
How to Make an Egg Carton Peace Dove
You Will Need
- An empty cardboard egg carton, preferably in white
- A sharp pair of scissors
- A small piece of gold cardstock (or use yellow)
- Hot glue gun
- Gold thread or ribbon
- Skewer or papercraft poking tool
- A small piece of pipe cleaner
- Optional template
How To
Start with an egg carton.
Cut out one and a half pointed shapes from the middle of your egg carton.
Cut the pieces apart to separate them, then flatten the shapes.
Cut a semi-circle shape for your dove’s body from the whole pointed shape.
Snip the corner off each edge.
Unfold. This becomes your dove’s body shape.
Now take the offcut scrap from the whole pointy shape.
Trim this into an elongated half-teardrop shape for the head. The point of the egg carton forms the head.
Snip a tiny piece of the corner away.
You should have one-half egg carton point remaining. Cut this into a larger half-teardrop shape for the tail.
Optionally, scallop the edges of the tail.
To make the wings, cut a piece of egg carton side panel the length of two cups.
Fold this in half.
Trim into the folded shape of a wing (use the template if necessary).
Unfold.
To make the beak, fold a small scrap of gold card stock in half and cut into a beak shape. Make sure you leave room for glue (it needs to be about twice as long as you wish the beak to be).
Use a hot glue gun to glue the body pieces together.
Poke a hole in the centre of the dove’s back using a skewer. Place the dove wings over the hole to measure where they fit best, then poke a hole in the wings too.
Tie a length of gold thread in a loop shape with a double knot.
Fold a small piece of pipecleaner in half, and use this as a ‘needle threader’ to pull the looped thread through the dove’s body.
Thread the wings onto the dove ornament, then hot glue in place. It’s up to you whether you wish the curl of the dove’s wings pointed upward or downward (both work).
Turn the dove over and hot glue the beak into place.
All done!
Your peace dove is ready to hang on the tree!
More Recycled Christmas Crafts
- Make some cardboard ornaments using our free Christmas shapes
- These paper roll shadowbox ornaments are so pretty!
- Turn a paper roll into a cute cardboard reindeer
