easter eggs

2012: Apr 7

To be quite honest here, I have completely forgotten what our line is on the Easter Bunny. Does he come traipsing through with baskets full of goodies, leaving egg hiding to the homeowners? Or does he take our pre-decorated eggs and mischievously tuck them into odd corners to make for Easter morning mayhem? I may have fumbled the details a bit as I laid out the rules for Easter morning wake-up to the kids. That was the hard part. The easy part came later, being the hiding of the eggs, which, in some cases, were not very hidden at all.

2012: Mar 31

One day, I'm sure, the kids will have an interest in beautifying things like their rooms, their hair and their papier mache eggs. For now, it seems enough to just ply their subjects with as much wet-sticky mess as can be born.

2012: Mar 22

Those balloons from the other night got the papier mache treatment today, a day when our one-thing-at-a-time kitchen was not required for food preparation (dinner out = craft cooking). Previous years, you might recall, have had us shopping for those wooden eggs for easterly decorating. But I feel that's run its course, and I really don't know what I'd do with another dozen wooden eggs knocking around these parts. And I already had the balloons stashed in a drawer. So papier mache seemed like a good way to go, although deviating from the familiar craft routes always leaves me with the is-this-going-to-be-total-disaster pre-regrets. But Bear stumbled down from her nap to find me elbow-deep in my cooked-up paste of flour and water and newspaper strips with a dozen slathered mini-ballons strung up to dry, and she simultaneously demanded a cup of milk and one of the eggs. So I'll call it an early success.

Apr:19

Wood may not be the most ecological choice for egg decorating, but it won't send The Boy into a hive-y outbreak either. Yeah, there's a very attractive papier mache middle ground, that we'll get to one of these years. As for this year, these will have to do.

Successes and a near-miss

eggs1.jpg

I mentioned before that last year's egg decorating was a disaster of fantastical proportions. And by that, I mean it was very, very, VERY messy. Glue everywhere, dripping off the wooden eggs so profusely that the little bits and bobbles designated to adorn the them verily flowed right off. We were left with moist, immodestly-dressed ovate masses, glitter and beads flaking off every time The Boy breathed upon them to examine their unending states of wetness. 

All I wanted this year was a better rate of return. I designed this year's activities to be messy enough to engage a near-four-year-old, but not so unconfined as to make me want to cry. In that regard, the decorating, spread over the half-week that The Boy abstains from school, was a grand success. And really, it was a success all around. After all, it resulted in my new favorite object around the house. 

eggs2.jpg

There's something so ridiculous about this egg, it's really difficult not to love. We blanketed an egg with adhesive dots, packed on the fuzzies, and Boy and I were just giddy with pride. So proud that we nearly tripped each other up, eager to show our day's work to Mr. New Media when he arrived home from work that evening. Now, that's a good egg. 

The painted eggs were actually the first ones done that morning, basically a warm-up exercise and homage to your traditional PAAS-dyed egg. Nothing too exciting there, but I don't look at them, heart-broken at another crafty fail, either.

eggs3.jpg

Easter day, kids fresh from their afternoon nap, we set to work on the two remaining eggs. We harvested up a little pailful of grass and flowers and friendly-looking weeds for the project. And after a liberal application of Mod Podge we hand-applied the bits of flora and fauna (there were some little bugs swept up with our loot that didn't survive the gluing process). And there it is, another egg success. We might have tried for a little more coverage, but I think it works. I don't know of anything more spring-like than a wooden egg shellacked with grass. 

eggs4.jpg

Ah yes, the near-miss. The last egg, slapdashed in the moments right after Mr. New Media announced dinner's readiness, is a bit of an Easter disaster, something that might make dear Martha cringe. But this picture gives me the giggles every time I pull it up. And so, of course, I'm constantly pulling it up. So, really, on that basis alone, I'm going to tally this one in the Wildly Successful column. 

 

Tags: easter, easter eggs, glue, mess

Fuzzy ball egg

Just about the most satisfying bit of craftiness with an almost-four-year-old ever. Just stuck a bunch of little pompoms to an adhesive-dot-blanketed wooden egg. Would have loved to use home-felted wool balls, but that would have required way more time and planning. Read about it at www.lovelihood.com/blog/successes-and-near-miss

Fuzzy ball egg

Just about the most satisfying bit of craftiness with an almost-four-year-old ever. Just stuck a bunch of little pompoms to an adhesive-dot-blanketed wooden egg. Would have loved to use home-felted wool balls, but that would have required way more time and planning. Read about it at www.lovelihood.com/blog/successes-and-near-miss