ever since i was little (and i guess even before that) we have been painting empty eggs to decorate our easter tree. the easter tree is a vase full of twigs and branches of various seasonal greenery. this year we have forsythia, peach tree and something from a hedge with bright green little leaves. the whole lot came from my mum's garden. (i have some catkin that i still need to put in as well.)
i'm usually not that much into bright yellow but these flowers add a very happy splash in our home at the moment. especially when mixed with the lovely pink of the peach buds
and the bright green hedge greenery.
(just noticed it's a littly blurry... sorry about that.)
we always use real eggs for our decoration. two or three weeks before easter i go and buy white eggs and when i bake or we have scrambled eggs for breakfast i don't break the shells but poke a hole at both ends, blow the egg white and yolk out, rinse them and let them dry.
then i wrap some skewers with some low tack sticky tape (the kind that electricians use to mark wires) to form a stopper and then on to the fun part of painting the eggs. i know there are these egg-holder-thingies that you can find in the kids crafts section around easter but we had one when i was little and it never worked. when T wants to paint eggs i wrap some tape on top of the egg too so it won't fall off and it works great. there is lots of skewer left for him to hold on to and he can tip and tilt the egg as much as he wants and needs to.
these are some of the eggs he made:
the blue and white one - he wanted it on a stick just like my red and orange circus-egg.
these are last year's eggs - he chose all the colours himself and even adding the trim was his idea. he is just so cute when he does any kind of crafting. he gets this very concentrated look on his face and is totally engrossed in what he does. he also seems to have a very clear picture of what he wants to do because he usually refuses any kind of suggestion.
and these he made in kindergarten last year and this year. the technique seems to be the same in both cases: dip the egg in paint and then roll them in something:
paperflakes and glass seed beads.
of course they use plastic eggs in kindergarten to avoid any kind of broken-egg-drama and i think it's so sweet and thoughtful that they do this kind of seasonal crafting with the kids.
using real eggs to decorate has its risks though:
the branches we have now are the second batch already beause the first one wilted away rather quickly. one of the wilted branches seems to have been drooping so quickly that this egg broke when it hit the surface. another egg i dropped while i was putting them up in the first place. yes, i feel a little sad when pretty painted eggs break but for me that's actually just a part of the whole thing - egg shells just break and if we didn't break some there would be no point in painting new ones.
this one i have been protecting like the apple of my eye though:
my brother made this egg 10 years ago! it says "Fisch Ei" on the one side. it's kind of a pun that you only get when you know that "Ei" (pronounced kinda like "aye" only sharper) is german for "egg". so this is a fish egg... waahahaha!
my husband made some pun-eggs too:
this is an "eye" which again sounds like "Ei" and this is an "aye-aye":
this is my hubby's work too. he always says he's no good at that kind of thing but when he does it i'm always amazed at the outcome. i absolutely love this egg:
(i only just notized how lovely the colours of the egg go with the green stripes of the jug behind it.)
this is a fun technique to do with kids too. all you need is colourful tissue paper, water and a blow drier. you tear the tissue paper to little pieces, dip them in water and stick them to the egg. (i think this only works with real eggs though.) when the egg is covered you either have to be patient and wait for it to dry or you blow dry the egg and watch the pieces of tissue paper fly away. the colour stays on the egg creating a really cool effect:
my mum made this phoenix egg last year i think:
this was made by a friend in 2011:
these are hers as well. they are a work in progress. she had to go before they were done but she's gonna come back this week to finish them.
it's kind of a tradition already. a weekend or two before easter i invite my siblings, my hubby's siblings and some friends to come over and paint eggs together. i get my paints and brushes and trims and ribbons and beads and whatever anyone wants out and everyone can use whatever they like. we have spring themed food (last saturday it was bread rolls my mum baked (she bakes the best bread ever!) and stuff to put on them and a big tray of fresh veggies with sourcream dip. i also baked an almond and a walnut cake.
i very much like this one too. i collaged the Frog King from a Lindt chocolate wrapper on it and used some other chocolate foil to cut out some water lilies and leaves.
only two more and then i'm done with the eggs. for now - it's not easter yet... there might be some more to come...
i had been wanting to paint some snail shells for easter decoration since last year and we had been looking for and collecting them whenever we went out for walks. they are easiest to find in late winter when the snow is gone but the ground is still bare. i wash them as well as i can to get as much earth as possible out of them and let them dry.
i thought painted snail shells on the easter tree would look just adorable. i remember my aunt used to do that with my cousins (and us) around easter when we were little.
last friday i suddenly remembered something i made when i was maybe eight years old. i took a snail shell and stuffed some flowers in it. i doubt that it looked very pretty... but it popped into my head and then i had to go emergency shopping
for some paper/fabric/plastic flowers. this is what i came home with:
and i picked up these tiny adorable birdies too.
as our crafting session was to be on saturday i had to make a sample friday night to see if my idea - derived from my eight year old self - worked.
i poked the hole (with an awl - works great) in the wrong place so the bird kind of looks down and i burnt myself with the hot glue but altogether i'm very pleased with it.
i made this one on saturday. at first i thought the bird looked a little mean but now i'd rather think of it as sleepy...
my mum made this one:
all the colours match so well and it's so very pretty.
i love the gold details on the shell
and the shading from yellow to purple.
T made this one. he was very explicit about where and how the bird exactly had to sit.
this is my hubby's. just as with the egg he made - i love the simplicity of it.
especially the flowery ones are very hard to photograph because they look so different from every angle but personally i like picture heavy posts (when i read other people's blogs) better than walls of text...
i have to go now and make some more snail shells in more different colours and styles... get inspired and make some too... copying and sharing welcome ;)