I loved doing a treasure map hunt last year on Christmas morning, so have decided to re-post this from last year. It explains how I made the treasure maps to look as authentic as I could before hiding them in eggs. Last year, I started with a partial map that slowly grew into a full map. This year… I’m still contemplating what to do. I know I want a treasure map (or more than one map) to be involved. Let me know your ideas!
Here is a fun twist on the old classic: The Easter Egg Hunt.
For Christmas, I had a lot of fun making realistic/weathered looking treasure maps to give my daughter some extra fun with finding one of her Christmas presents. You can see the post here: Weathered Treasure Maps.
She loved doing a treasure hunt so much, that I’ve decided to make it part of our family’s Easter Egg Hunt this year.
The biggest difference in the preparation of the maps between the regular, weathered treasure maps in my original post is that I needed to pre-fold these maps to fit into the eggs. With the creases pre-made before staining the maps, it was a lot easier to fold the maps to fit into the Easter eggs once they were weakened by the weathering process. Torn spots and scratches are great for adding a realistic touch, but too many and the map is no longer readable.
To make it work as an Easter egg hunt and not just a one-map-treasure hunt, I only gave a portion of the map at a time with a riddle to act as a clue to where she’ll find the next egg and more of the treasure map. The riddle was mainly a standby in case she had trouble reading the map. The further along she went in the hunt, the more complete the map became until, finally, X marked the spot.
Here’s an example of a map and its riddle. The riddle reads, “You should eat on me, but Mommy has her work here.” The location for the next egg to be found is the dining table, which I have temporarily commandeered as my office table while we’re remodeling.
Once I had the maps done with their designated riddle/clue, I started filling the eggs. First and foremost, I made sure to double check myself and set each map in order. Then, I filled an egg with map #1, then #2, and so on. Once an egg had a map and riddle in it, I placed a numbered sticker on the egg so that all of the eggs remained in the proper order.
When she is out of the house, asleep, or distracted in some other way, I will hide the eggs in their appropriate spot.
Let the treasure hunt begin!
Such a fun idea! I used to make treasure maps when I had day care kids – they loved them and always raced to see who would find the clues. You’re right, remembering the order is the worst part. We did this one year at our church girl’s camp and the clues got mixed up. Somehow, we managed …