Easter Rattle Snake

The 'Easter Rattle Snake
- Not to be confused with the Eastern Rattle Snake

If you have kids or a large extended family, each year you participate in the yearly easter egg hunt... and unless you're the purist and use real hard-boiled died eggs you end up each year with a lot of emptied plastic easter eggs - and a few stragglers the kids did not find.

So, what exactly are we to do with these plastic discarded shells... you can't chuck them in the compost bin, they don't recycle, you could clean and reuse for Jello molds... If you a foot or two of twine/rope, a drill, a 1/4" drill bit, a scrap piece of wood and a glue gun you make an Easter Rattle Snake.

Step 1 Parts List

A lot of empty plastic Easter Eggs
- used or bought on clearance for dirt cheap, cheap, cheap (pun intended)
- you can by in bulk from wholesale/eBay, but we're recycling/reusing here ok...

2-5 feet of nylon rope or twine, depending on how long you want your snake and how much patience you have.

Scissors, for cutting rope/twine

Your favorite variable-speed drill, I prefer DeWalt or Black+Decker
1/2" drill bit
1/4" drill bit

Scrap 2x4 pine, about 2-3 feet in length
- any thick piece of scrap wood will do...

Glue or Tape
We used hot glue and some masking tape... you can also use super glue or plastic model airplane glue or just plain old clear masking tape.

For the rattler...
Jelly Beans, just need 3 or 4, the rest you can snack on while you put this together. You can also use those heart candies or mike+ikes, they seem to last forever.

For the eyes...
Plastic toy eyeballs, the kind that you buy at Michael's / JoAnne's or other craft store that have a peel off backing and can stick to things, they wiggle when you shake them. If you're feeling real creative make some out of Fimo polymer clay. Even simpler, use a black Sharpie marker or eyeball stickers... your choice.

Comments

[charchar2]

This is so awesome! we are having an easter egg hunt tomorrow and i can't  wait to make one! what a great idea! these usually just sit around the house forever! Recycle, reuse! Yay! thank you so much for the wonderful idea! i rate this instructable 5 stars!!!!!!

[St Animal Army]

That is genius, I have never seen that before.

[phoenixjen]

I have bags of these sitting on my counter. Now I know what to do with them! Thanks so much for the idea!!

[ct_joanna]

Oops! Here's the photos of our snakes and egg tree.

[ct_joanna]

This was a GREAT project to use up a lot of our eggs and it was also wonderful that it wasn't a 'girly' project. My sons love their snakes! We added a whole egg for the head. My hot glue didn't seam to be holding too well (pealed off too easy) so I ended up just using a piece of packing tape to seal the tail egg full of beans. I also made a 'Silly Straw Egg Tree' for the snakes to live in. We have also accumulated a lot of silly straws that we never use (they are top heavy and kid cups are short so it is a messy combo). I got a stick from the wood pile, drilled angled holes, painted it purple, put it in a little bucket full of rocks to support it, glued grass on top to cove, cut the straws in half and glued them in place, and hung eggs with left over Christmas ribbon. CUTE!

[Donna_Wagman]

It could be a very hungry (& colorful) caterpillar. What fun!

[qazwsxedcrfvtgbyhnujmikolp]

What's that

[Mintyhippo]

thats really neat! =) +1

[lebowski]

Nicely done. My wife isn't crazy about snakes, but this would be a great project for the kids.

[drake]

thats a good way to recicle trash thx