Hop Over to Oriental Trading for All of Your Easter Celebration Needs – Review

I cannot believe that Easter is already less than a month away! In the moment, the hours have seemed to drag on and on but the days, in reality, have gone by oh so quickly. Maybe it’s the horridly cold weather we’ve been having but, despite how badly I want to, it just doesn’t quite feel like spring… or almost Easter for that matter. I’m craving some warm sunshine and a good, old fashioned Easter egg hunt but, for now, I’m still stuck indoors trying to keep warm. Oh the joys of this “March in like a lion” thing. Needless to say, we’ve been trying to keep busy with as many springy activities as possible because, even if the weather continually refuses to cooperate, at least we can make it feel like springtime inside!

In the midst of our spring cleaning, the kids have been doing numerous activities and creating fun artwork to decorate our home for the season. Whenever crafty ideas come with our little ones in mind, one of my favorite places to shop for goodies is none other than Oriental Trading.

If you are unfamiliar with Oriental Trading, go now! To put it in the simplest form, it is amazing! As the nation’s largest direct retailer of an astounding collection of arts and crafts, party supplies, toys and novelties, school supplies, home décor, giftware, and more all priced at wonderful value rates and easily affordable prices, you can truly get just about anything. They have a plethora of items readily available to help you celebrate a vast majority of holidays, birthdays, school events, community festivities, and more! After celebrating their own accomplishment of over eighty years in business, they want to help us finally get into the spring and Easter spirit.

Recently, Oriental Trading was kind enough to send some fun things our way and, now, I’d like to take a few moments to share that with you. After deciding on another craft project and having looked through nearly three hundred different available options (just in the Easter craft department alone!), I decided on the following:

• Handprint Easter Chick Keepsake Craft Kit
• Pastel Color Pails
• Fabulous Foam Easter Shapes

Most Easter items, while cute, are never quite unique. Children come home from school with their adorably sweet bunny rabbit crafts, community events all consist of regular plastic Easter eggs, and even at home, many Easter baskets are filled with the same cliché items year after year. Now, I love a good tradition as much as the next person but I also enjoy being able to mix it up a little from time to time. Oriental Trading helps me do just that. With their collection of crafts, we can all put our own spin on things and make an ordinary project become extraordinary. And that, well, that is what I wanted to be able to give my children this Easter – something extraordinary.

With the Handprint Easter Chick Keepsake Craft Kit from Oriental Trading, our little ones were able to truly make each craft their own. We invited some friends over, broke out the painting shirts, and went at it! With a table full of young children, the idea of pulling out things like paint and glue was, surely, a bit overwhelming. However, thanks to the wonderful, think-ahead folks at Oriental Trading, the fact that each kit came individually packaged for each child was a great surprise and huge help.

The entire craft was rather simple for the little ones to understand and even snuck in a bit of an educational aspect through pattern practice. Notice the pink, yellow, yellow color sequence of the squares – even the youngest of the group, at only three years old, was able to grasp the concept and accomplish this pattern goal. All of the pieces were pre-cut and simply needed putting together. A dab of glue here and a dab of glue there and you’re all set! I will admit that the finger painting portion and helping each child create their handprints was a bit messy but we knew that going in. After all, a little mess never hurt anyone.

I absolutely love the way that these Handprint Easter Chick Keepsake Craft Kit creations came out and, better yet, the kids are all so proud of what they made! I am a sucker for handprint items because, years from now, we’ll all be able to look back and see just how tiny they were, just how big they’ve grown, and just how precious their little prints are.

In retrospect, I would recommend a lighter back color since you really have to load up on the paint in order to get the yellow to show well over the purple. And, with younger children and/or full classrooms in mind, sticker backs would be a tad bit easier than the glue for the individual pieces. Aside from that, it was an absolute joy to work on this project with the kids.

As they were waiting for their handprint crafts to dry, we moved onto the next little event. For Easter, everyone needs a good basket or bucket, right? That is where the Oriental Trading Pastel Color Pails came in.

We let each child choose their favorite of the six included colors – blue, green, purple, yellow, pink, and white.

From there, we went onto decorating them. Just as having the personalized handprint crafts, children are thrilled to have the opportunity to make an item their own. So, of course, this is where the Fabulous Foam Easter Shapes by Oriental Trading came in.

With twelve different foam sticker designs, each in two sizes, to choose from, the creative possibilities are truly endless. Each of the kids went ahead and adorned their pails with their choice of stickers to, once again, make them personalized for each child.

When all is said and done, you can add whatever small goodies you’d like to each pail. From Easter grass and a handful of tasty treats to a few surprise-filled plastic eggs, they definitely make a great addition to your holiday décor.

Regardless of what you are celebrating or shopping for, Oriental Trading can definitely help you kick your merriment up a notch. Head on over and check them out. Trust me, you will not be disappointed.

BUY:
You can purchase all of the items featured here as well as a number of other crafts, novelty toys, tableware, home décor, and more for Easter and every celebration to come. Prices for Easter craft items similar to those above start as low as $1.48 and are available directly from www.OrientalTrading.com. And through tomorrow, March 31^st, only, Oriental Trading is offering $3.99 flat rate shipping on all orders. To take advantage of this special deal, simply enter the code “ACMAR14” at checkout.

CONNECT:
Be sure to keep up with all things Oriental Trading via their social media networks on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest to stay up to date on all of the latest news, newest product releases, biggest sales, fun project ideas, giveaways and more!

Speaking of giveaways, Oriental Trading is currently holding a spectacular Easter Fun Giveaway. Each week, through April 11^th, they will choose one winner to receive a whopping $250 in Oriental Trading products! What’s not to love?!

I cannot tell you how incredibly excited I am to have had the opportunity to, once again, celebrate with the amazingly wonderful Oriental Trading. This incredible company truly has it all and I cannot wait until our next event so that we can make them part of our celebration all over again.

*Randi received the above product(s), free of charge, to facilitate this review. All opinions are those of the reviewer only.