easy, inexpensive easter/spring decorations

i have another copycat craft idea for you today. harrison and i made this easter egg garland in less than an hour while graham was snoozing. the best part is it was free!

can you guess what we used to make it?

paint chips! 

i borrowed this idea from the red barn candle company blog. we made ours a bit differently, using both solid and striped paint chips. we also punched holes and strung ours with curling ribbon (because that's what i had on hand) as opposed to hot gluing them onto twine like she did. check out her blog post for the full tutorial.

basically you
1) get some paint chips
2) draw an egg shaped template on one of them
3) cut it out
4) trace around your template on the back of the rest of the paint chips
5) cut out your eggs
6) punch holes
7) string together
8) hang.

we also decorated the front porch...

our spring bunny comes out every year. i believe i bought him for less than $5 at hobby lobby a few years back.

the boys love decorating our easter tree. as opposed to our christmas tree, i let them hang every egg and carrot all by themselves with absolutely no input from me! 

we took a walk around the neighborhood to find branches then simply stuck them into a planter and decorated with ornaments i purchased at the dollar tree last year. total cost: $3 for ornaments. the tiny carrots are my favorite. we hang them so the easter bunny will want to stop at our house!

and lastly we set out a couple of faux bird's nests. you have to mix in a little faux spring decor to offset the bling of the fake easter decor. it brings balance to the arrangement.

oh, don't listen to me. i'm just being silly! i actually bought these nests for our N is for Nest homeschool unit last semester. why not set them out? they look cute underneath the easter tree.

and that's it!

let me know if you end up making your own paint chip easter garland, easter tree, or paper plate baby chick. i'd LOVE to see photos!