Egg-Quarium

I've been working on some non card crafts lately, including some scene filled cleaned out eggs.  This is only the second one I've done, but I'm really enjoying doing these.

I started out by cracking the egg on its side and carefully peeling out some shell, then reserving the innards for cooking.  I washed out the egg and dyed it green using food colouring.

I used air dry clay for the inside critters.  (Air dry clay is very light and doesn't require heating to set.)  The sand dollar and starfish I moulded freehand, adding some details with clay tools.  When dry, I added some other details with a black glitter pen.  For the fist I used a fondant mould I bought on ebay (I didn't realize it was for fondant, and was hoping to use it for chocolates, but it's way too small for that. Perfect size for this though.)  I added some red glitter pen to it for contrast.

The shells are actual tiny shells. I cut the plants out of cardstock, twisted them a bit and added glossy accents to give them more definition (and some shimmer).

Everything is mounted on half a styrofoam ball, which I carved out a bit and liberally covered with glue and white beach sand.  Most of the shapes were directly attached to the ball with some glossy accents, the fish was attached with a piece of silver wire (coloured green with an alcohol marker) and hidden behind a piece of greenery.

For my previous egg scene I put the ball in and then built the scene inside the egg.  For this one, I built the scene outside and carefully squished it in through the gap. I'd put some hot glue in the bottom and so had to very quickly arrange the ball to display properly. I was hoping to have it a bit further up the back, but the glue dried too fast.

For the outside display I added a fish button to one end of the hanging cord, then took a shell that had a small hole in it and tied the cord inside (to hide the knot when I glued it down).  I then glued a few shells around it.  I glued another shell to the bottom of the egg.