Easter Egg Surprise Soaps

I saw this craft in Family Fun in their December issue as snowball soap surprise.  I did not really find the time to do it then but ripped it out of the magazine thinking I could modify it for Easter.

The hardest part of this activity was actually finding a small Easter toy to insert into the finished egg.  I ended up finding these small place in water and grow toys but not sure how they will do once the soap gets wet....The whistles were too large.

 I originally thought I would need the plastic eggs to shape the soap, but the soap will shape as easily as any play dough.  We made a few smaller ones in egg shapes for decorative soaps to put out by the sink.

 I also had some soap dye from a previous project and mixed the dye into a ball of soap as I was shaping it.  It is more festive for the holiday but a little messy.

The kids had fun seeing the soap grated and shaping the eggs.

These would make fun party favors for a dinosaur party filled with those tiny plastic dinosaur shaped toys


Materials

• Food processor or cheese grater
• 4 (4.5-ounce) bars of Ivory soap

• 8 tiny plastic toys

Instructions

1. 
   
   
   Use a food processor fitted with the grater attachment to shred the four bars of soap. (You can also grate the bars by hand with a cheese grater.) Pour the soap pieces into a large bowl.
2. 
   
   With your hands, mix in about a half cup of lukewarm water, a little bit at a time, until the mixture is squishy and claylike.  I was a little cautious the first egg and did not add enough water and it did not try as hard as the later ones.
3. 
   
   For each snowball, scoop up a heaping handful of soap and mold it into a ball. Poke a deep hole in the center with your finger, insert a toy, and refill the hole. Lay the finished snowballs on a cookie sheet and let them dry thoroughly. Makes 8. I dried them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper overnight.