On New Year’s Eve day I was scrolling through Instagram and saw this post for @ingthings whereby she shared some little mountains she knit for friends that were coming over because in Austria, it’s tradition to give little good luck trinkets for the new year. Well, that was the spark I needed to make a little craft table for our friends coming over for NYE — it was time to make lucky egg carton mushrooms!

I’ve always wanted to make these and lord knows I have enough egg cartons, thanks to my repurpose-everything nature (I am not a hoarder, I am not a hoarder). Let me show you how easy these are to make!

See the video on my Instagram post.

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Supplies needed for Egg Carton Mushrooms:

~ Egg cartons (I used 3 to make 36 mushrooms)

~ Xacto knife

~ Scissors

~ Hot glue gun

~ Rigatoni and/or Corks

~ Acrylic paints

~ Brushes

How to make Egg Carton Mushrooms:

1. First, cut the peaks off of the egg cartons using the exact knife. These will become the stems, or they can become the mushrooms (or trees as my kids called them). You won’t have enough of these peaks for all the stems which is why I also used rigatoni and corks.

2. Cut up all the cups and trim them down.

3. Paint the tops white. This is optional, but egg cartons are made from paper pulp and are spongy so they absorb the first layer. I just wanted the colors to be really bright, but you can skip this step if you don’t mind colors being a little more muted (not really by much). Tell your guests who may have never mixed colors before to add a little white so that the color is more creamy and opaque.

4. Hot glue all the tops to the stems.

5. Set them out with paints and palettes or paper plates, glasses of water and paper towel for dabbing.

TIP: I also printed out some colorful mushroom photos and left them on the table for inspiration. I wanted to spark people’s imaginations that they don’t all need to be red!

We had a few takers on NYE but then my own kids really got into them on New Year’s Day and even the following weekend. Since they are teens and young adults now, of course they made it into a competition “which one will mom like better” which was hilarious and amazing and the best way to start 2024. My heart is full.

Share your mushrooms with me on Instagram if you make them!

xo Bar

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Did you like this post? Here are some more repurposed DIY ideas:

Paper Luminaries

Coffee Filter Wall Hanging

Heart Stamps from Craft Foam