Sunday, February 28, 2010

Peek A Boo Easter Eggs



What is old is new again :) These are the little eggs I made last year but because of several requests the instructions to make them are now in my free online workshops. Just click on the link in the left hand sidebar. You can also click on the picture above to get a better view of all 4 eggs!
 
 
Yes these are just plastic Easter eggs!



To begin you need to glue the seams of your eggs with E6000 so they don't open. Once that is dry make an oval template and using a dremel tool, cut an oval on one side of each egg. If you don't have a dremel you can make one with out the peek :)) see the picture of the purple egg.
 

Once that is done mix a little white glue with water so it is really runny. Then tear the cut edge from some printers paper and tear that into strips. Soak each strip in the water and smooth onto the egg. Now you have to wait again :) but you can cut out the images your going to use while you wait. When that is dry use a heavy coat of Gel medium and yes, wait again!

When dry sand your egg as smooth as you like. I used a sanding barrel on the end of my dremel to speed that up. I also did not smooth it out totally because I wanted that hand made artistic look. Then I painted them with white Gesso, once dry I dry brushed them with a little color, whew ... the drying is done! and now it is time to decorate! 

I just stamped the outside of the egg according to the style I chose for each one. I used the inner circle of a canning jar lid to hot glue a little nest of moss and then glued my egg to that but you could use all kinds of things to stand your egg on. A few ideas are candle holders, little box bottoms or even a napkin ring. For the peek-a-boo eggs I used images cut from Altered Artifacts collage sheets available at my Etsy store, floral elements and colored tissue paper that I had sewn and made mini garlands out of. These are simple to make, Sew lines down several layers of tissue. I use it straight from the package and I just leave it folded as it comes. The lines you sew do not have to be perfect nor does it matter if the tissue tucks a bit as you sew it because it really will not show when your garland is finished. Then trim the tissue about 1/4 of an inch from each side of the stitching. Whala your sewing lines are straight! The without cutting through the stitching clip the tissue about every 1/8 and inch and this doesn't have to be exact either. Once you have the entire strip clipped on both sides of the stitching, hold both end in one hand and twist it up. Without letting it untwist gather it into a ball and roll it in your hands to form as small a ball as you can. Unroll it and fluff. This can be repeated until you are happy with the look. The more you twist roll and fluff the softer it gets.
 

Now for the whole Victorian egg I wet the back of my image. This made it pliable so that it would contour to the egg easily without wrinkling. This only works with laser images because the ink might run for inkjet images. Once it was soft, I applied a little glue and glued it to the egg. Then I masked off my image and sprayed the egg with Elmer's craft bond glue and rolled it in glass glitter, removed the mask and glued it to a little tissue paper nest that I had also glued onto a caning jar inner lid 
 


1 comment:

Priti Lisa said...

So old-timey and pretty! I really enjoyed you tutorial on the flower pins...I have some I bought from artists, now I might make my own. I love the idea of using denim :)
thank you!
xox, Lisa