How to Make Egg Carton Animal Portraits -

Looking for a unique animal craft? If so, learn how to make these egg carton animal portraits! This craft would be great to pair with an animal unit study, a zoo trip, or done as a 3-D art project. The best part is, its simple, eco-friendly, and uses items that you, more than likely, already have laying around the house.

In this post, I’m going to show you how we made our animal portraits using egg cartons, along with a few extra helpful tips. Let’s get started.

Egg Carton Animal Portraits as an Educational Craft

Egg carton animal portraits would make an awesome educational craft that could go along with an animal unit study, book report, or art class project. Here are some of our animal unit studies that this egg carton craft would complement:

Printable Animal Unit Studies:

Materials Needed for Egg Carton Animal Portraits

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Egg carton (Cardboard)
Card Stock Paper (Tan and White)
Acrylic or Tempera paint
Paintbrushes
Scissors or Craft Knife
Glue (Tacky glue, Fabri-Tac, OR hot glue)
Black Sharpie
Optional Accessories: Fabric scraps, buttons, googly eyes, sequins, stencils, and colored card stock.

How to Make Egg Carton Animal Portraits

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1. Cut out the portrait base from card stock.

Start by cutting out the base from the card stock using scissors or a craft knife. I used a white scalloped base, then layered a brown piece of paper on top, but you can do whatever size, shape, or color that you prefer. Note: Use a heavy duty card stock, so your animal portrait will be stable.

2. Cut the animal pieces from the egg carton.

Cut out the individual “cups” from the egg carton. (I used the ones inside of the carton.) These “cups” will be the animals’ faces. Also, cut ears from the egg carton as well (think different shapes and sizes).

3. Pair the faces and ears of the animals.

Once you have all the pieces cut out, you can begin shaping, trimming, and matching features to create the animals you are going for. (For example, a mouse can be paired with round ears, a bunny with tall, slender ears, and a cat or fox with small pointed ears.)

4. Paint the egg carton animals’ heads and add features.

Next, paint the animal heads. Paint a base color for the animal then let it dry. After the base color is dried you can use paint (or a black sharpie) to add a nose, eyes, inner ear, whiskers, etc…

5. Assemble and attach the animal head to the portrait base.

Once the paint has dried you can assemble and attach your animal head to the portrait base. Make sure that you glue it high enough on your frame so you have room to add clothing and accessories to each animal.

5. Get creative and add outfits and accessories.

This is the fun part, draw or paint outfits and accessories on your egg carton animals to complete their portraits. (I drew mine first then painted it.) But you could use fabric scraps, buttons, sequins, or any other items from around the house to finish off your portraits.

Additional outfit and accessory ideas:

Bow tie
Hair or Hair ribbon
Shirt
Vest
Overalls
Dress
Pockets
Collars
Buttons
Jacket
Sweater

Egg carton animal portraits is a fun craft that promotes creativity and uses what most of us have laying around the house. Whether you’re working on a rainy afternoon project with kids or looking for a quirky piece of 3-d art for your home, this simple spring craft is a great one to try.

Tips for Creating Amazing Egg Carton Animal Portraits

Make Sure You Have a Strong Base: Use a couple layers of heavy duty card stock or even cardboard as your base. This will ensure that your portrait will be sturdy.
Protect Your Surface: Lay some newspaper or old towels down on your surface to protect from paint stains.
Try Different Animals: Egg cartons can be shaped and sized in so many different ways, so experiment with various animals (i.e. bear, giraffe, mouse, fox, lion, rabbit, hippo, elephant, dog, or cat).
Use Color: Use colors to make your egg carton animals your own! You can keep your animals more neutral and natural looking OR you can go wild and paint using bright and bold colors.
Get Creative: Add extra features like a bowtie, a crown, or a scarf on your animals. Use glitter, sticker, or sequins to make your creation unique and fun.