Carrot Surprise

 I know, I know....Easter is still almost 40 days away, but I always plan early!  This year I made these carrot surprise toys.  Have you seen surprise balls?  Basically, it's crepe paper (sometimes) in the shape of a ball and as you unroll the ball, little prizes fall out.  I've started seeing really cute shapes for the different holidays, and this year I decided I was going to make some carrot shaped surprises for some of my favorite beings under 4 feet to enjoy via the mail.

 I'll start with the end, I filled boxes with crinkle paper and put in surprise carrots for each of the kiddos at the house holds these were being shipped to.  These three carrots are going to my godson and his siblings.

 I tossed in some bunny ears for the little bunny in the bunch.  I'm sealing the boxes and shipping them out as soon as St Patrick's Day has come and gone.

 I bought some fun little toys at Oriental Trading/Party City, along with crepe paper streamers.  I ended up using a full orange on 4 carrots.  For the innards, the different party suppliers usually have free shipping every month or so, so I generally wait until I see that and order some little supplies.

 I started my carrots by wrapping up the pencils with crepe paper.  Once it was covered, I started adding in some of the other goodies (egg shaped cards in this photo).

 I would wrap a few layers, and then add another toy at various points, trying to keep the shape of the carrot in mind.

 I didn't use any glue, I just pressed them down and wrapped....and wrapped....and wrapped.

 I also found some little felt stickers I bought last year at the Target Dollar Spot.

 When I finally had all the prizes in the carrot, I cut some smaller strips of green, pressed them about halfway down the carrot and then just wrapped those in place.

 To 'end' the carrots once you have the shape you like, you can just tuck in the end of the crepe paper, or add a glue dot.

I thought about pressing a little stickers on each to tell them to unwrap the carrot, but I decided on a little card instead since these were being mailed.