Easter Egg Tree

My parents always had an easter egg tree for hand made blown eggs. It always had pussy willows and branches to hang the eggs on.

Well, I decided it was time for me to have a 'tree' to hang the eggs I've been making. In addition to the pussy willows, I added a cattail, some dollar store branches (one with mini eggs and one with little buds and butterfly beads). At the bottom are foam roses (also dollar store). To light it, I added a string of blue butterfly fairy lights.

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.

Fairy Garden Easter Egg

I've had 2 craft ideas lately that I wanted to do: a fairy garden / terrarium and decorated blown Easter eggs.  After talking with a friend, I decided to join those ideas together.

Voila: a fairy garden Easter egg.

I started out by carefully cracking the egg to let the insides out, then broke a decent sized hole in the shell.  I died it with blue food colouring.

For the inside, I took a styrofoam ball and cut it in half, using that as my base.  While school glue didn't work for securing it in place, so I used a bit of hot glue at the front to hold the base in place.  I glued some chunky green glitter down as grass.

I made the little mushroom house out of a light, air drying clay.  I scratched in lines for windows and a door with a pin.  The roof was painted with red nail polish (I forgot to add the white dots).  I coloured in the windows, door, and some 'bricks' with copic markers.  I pushed a small piece of wire into the base, which is how I secured it to the styrofoam ball.

In the background is a pink pipe cleaner tree I made following this tutorial.  Instead of the paint the tutorial suggested to give the branches some definition, I used a bit of glitter glue.  I also added 2 plastic flower clusters from a plastic flower I bought at the dollar store to the front of the house.

To finish off the egg, I wrapped some vine ribbon around the opening, then added a thin ribbon to hang it from.  I also added some butterfly stickers around the shell so it wouldn't look too plain from the back.