Use Old Egg Cartons For Budget-Friendly Wall Decor With This Savvy DIY

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Need an easy rainy day project that will leave you with an enchanting wall hanging? A few snips, dabs of glue, and paintbrush strokes transform an old upcycled egg carton and a canvas into woodland mushroom eye candy. Individual egg cup halves serve as mushroom caps, while sticks act as the stems. All it needs is some fairytale-colored paint to give the background and three-dimensional caps the necessary charm. Follow the basic steps for a simple and cute art piece like the one made by the crafter from the YouTube channel @GracefulDIY, or tweak them a tad to make it more polished and less youthful.

Brightly colored mushrooms are mounted on a framed canvas in either version of this DIY. You can start from scratch with a fresh canvas and frame or go frame-less by using just a stretched canvas. Alternatively, keep the costs low by upcycling thrift store artwork as a background, either first by covering the image with paint, or by incorporating the mushrooms into an existing design.

To whip up your own fun fungus artwork, gather a canvas, scissors, a Styrofoam or cardboard egg carton, paint, white or clear gesso, brushes, and a highly-rated crafting glue like Gorilla Hot Glue Sticks. (Other hot glue sticks may not provide enough of a long-term hold.) To make the mushrooms' stems, use sticks or cuttings from the egg carton. For fanciful mushrooms, choose whatever paint you like. The crafter created brightly-colored spotted 'shrooms resembling amanitas; IRL, these mushrooms come in gradients of cream to yellow to deep red or brown, often with an ombre effect that might be fun to attempt with paint.

Let's start by doing any prep to the canvas that you want; the paint or gesso can dry while you work on other elements of the piece. The inspirational YouTube crafter applied the mushrooms to a mostly blank canvas, but adding a background color or textured gesso can give the project a more polished appearance. Gesso is mainly a primer for the canvas, but it can also give texture to the background of a painting and smooth over the glued areas around the sticks and mushroom caps.

For the foraged route, gather short sticks about ½ inch in diameter. The YouTube video shows the sticks cut in half length-wise. A sharp utility blade should do the trick, but be sure to wear cut-resistant gloves during this step. You can also cut sections from the bent edges of the egg carton to make stems that taper upward from a wider base. Cut at least three cups away from the tray, and snip them in half to serve as mushroom caps. Give each "cap" a coat or two of paint. Once they're dry, arrange and glue them on your canvas in a pleasing way. Brush gesso over the seams between the caps and the canvas to help hide gaps or uneven areas, then touch up the surface with paint and a fine-tipped brush.

In the original DIY, the crafter used a toothbrush to paint grass detailing around each mushroom stem. Follow suit by brushing on a bit of green paint, or continue the three-dimensional theme by using floral moss for an even more whimsical accent for your home.