Recycled Turtle Craft – Egg Carton Treasure Box

We love a clever little egg carton craft! We have made Egg Carton Treasure boxes before.. but this time we are upskilling our make! Lets make a super fun Recycled Turtle Craft from Egg Cartons. You get to construct, paint, doodle and above all use your little turtles as a little treasure box! Keep your nature finds (and other bits on bobs) safe! If you love turtle crafts, read on!

Egg Carton Turtle Craft for Kids

Isn’t that a happy little turtle face? So fun!

I love that you can have lots of fun with doodling and adding finishing touches to your egg carton treasure boxes!

These fun recycled turtles wher first created and aired with Sky Kids, as part of their UK Best Makes Ever series! A series designed to make every day, easy crafts, using every day craft supplies! Nothing fancy, just lots of fun!

Supplies needed to make this Egg Carton Turtle:

Note: this craft as Paper Mache CONCEPTS.. without the mess/ hassle/ drying time of paper mache!

• 1 Egg Carton per turtle
• A little recycled cardboard (eg cereal packet or another egg carton)
• Recycled paper or newspaper
• Masking tape (this is key – do not use sello tape, if you don’t have masking tape, you can follow the same steps using homemade paper mache and dipping newspaper into the diy paper mache glue)
• Paints in desired colors
• Pens for doodle details
• Googly eyes (optional)

Egg Carton Turtle Video Tutorial:

As with many of my crafts, I have a video tutorial that you can check out or scroll down for the easy to follow step by step photo and written instructions!

Egg Carton Turtle Step by Step instructions

I do love that this little craft, as some “concepts” of papier mache, without the mess or drying times of paper mache!

Cute a turtle head and tail

We start off by cutting a Turtle head with a neck and an longish – tail. You can check against your egg carton that it “looks right” but that you also have a little tab to stick down.

Make the head and tail 3d (NOT Paper Mache – but similar concept)

Scrunch up a little newspaper and put it on your shape.

Secure it with masking tape. Masking tape is important as you can paint over it! If you don’t have masking tape, you can use strips of newspaper and a little homemade paper mache glue – all you need is flour and water for this.

Repeate for the second shape!

When you look at the turtle head/ turtle tail from the side, it should be 3d.

Attach the turtle head and tail to the treasure box

Again, using masking tape, secure the tail and turtle head to the egg carton. Again.. if you don’t have masking tape, paper mache can do this too, but you will have to add a few more layers and maybe prop the head and tail up whilst it dries fully.

Paint the Egg Carton Turtle

Now have fun painting your turtle body and turtle shell in fun colors!

Note: leave the central part of the box “plain” so you have four little Turtle legs!

Add the finishing touches to your turtle

I love this part – you can have fun with doodling on a shell design. Start in the middle of the egg carton turtle shell and work your way outwards.

Add paper eyes, rosy cheeks and don’t forget a little mouth.

Finally, you can add some finishing touches – by painting on some contrasting turtle spots!

Your Recycled Turtle Craft is finished! How cute?!

More Turtle Crafts for Summer and beyond: