Here’s another Easter project for you – this time it’s some painted decorative eggs:
I’ve often oohed-and-aahed over pretty eggs that appear in my Pinterest feed at this time of year. But it was when I saw THIS PIN with an egg by Landeelu that I decided to give it a try. Landee used a silhoutte machine to cut vinyl images for her eggs and I realised it would work great on my Cricut Explore! Read on for how made mine…
DISCLOSURE: Cricut have provided me with a Cricut Explore Machine, some materials including vinyls, and access to the Image Library, to help me write this post. However ALL opinions in this post are my own and not governed or controlled by Cricut in any way.
To blow out your eggs you will need:
* eggs * big bowl * washi tape * needle or pin * cocktail stick * short piece of straw *
How to blow out the eggs…
Step 1: Put a piece of washi tape at the top and bottom of your egg. Use a clean needle or pin to pierce a hole at the top and bottom (clean the needle between each egg). Don’t push the needle in too far or you’ll contaminate the egg with washi adhesive – if you are careful you’ll be able to eat these eggs for lunch!
If you struggle to push the pin or needle in you could use a thimble or bottle-top to help you:
Peel off the washi tape and make the holes a bit bigger using a clean cocktail stick (use a new stick for each egg):
Hold the short piece of straw at the top of the egg, hold the egg over the big bowl, and blow into the straw so the egg comes out of the hole at the bottom. The bigger the hole at the bottom the easier this is, so if you are struggling you can make your hole a bit bigger. If any bits of shell break make sure they don’t get into your lunch though!
Once the egg is all blown out, rinse under a tap, shake out the water, and then bake the empty shells to dry them out, in a preheated oven at 150 degrees C for 10 minutes. This helps to make them a bit harder too.
Scramble your eggs and eat them for lunch! I made scrambled eggs for the first time ever and I’m stupidly happy about it. I don’t like scrambled eggs but my kids do and I’ve been meaning to learn how to make them. The kids gobbled them up so I guess it was a success!
When your eggs are all dry you need to pick some paint colours. I used Martha Stewart Satin Craft Paints:
If you are wondering why there’s only 3 eggs when I started with four, it’s because my daughter wanted to paint one so I’ve set it aside for her!
Start painting your eggs. Landee mentions in her post that she props hers on wooden skewers, but my holes were too small for this, so I just alternated painting the tops of the eggs then the bottoms, leaving them propped in a pen-pot while they were drying:
This did take a while as they needed about 3 coats to make the paint look smooth. To stop your paint drying out in between, you can use damp kitchen paper to squeeze your paint onto when you start, and then lay another piece of damp kitchen paper on top when you are waiting for the eggs to dry between layers. Keep washing your brush out though or it will get clogged up!
While you are waiting for your layers to dry you can start designing and cutting your vinyl shapes. I used images #M4366F, #M4578C, and #M2E427:
Here’s how they look cut out and weeded. I put the weeding tool in the photo, to give a bit of an idea how small these designs are:
You’ve finished painting your eggs once they look pretty smooth (no brush marks) and you can’t see the shell colour:
When the paint is totally dry you can stick the vinyls on. I stuck the stars on by hand but used transfer tape to help with the bunny and the floral circle:
The circle wouldn’t sit flat because of the curve of the egg, so I snipped it in four places around the edge, these bits then overlapped and sat flat:
I didn’t bother covering my holes at the top and bottom of the eggs, as they were quite small so you can barely see them. Some people cover the holes with a piece of tissue paper stuck on with PVA or Mod-Podge so that’s an option if your holes are bigger.
Now you have pretty eggs!
I like that the vinyls can be peeled off, so if these eggs make it until next Easter I can always give them a new look with a new vinyl design!
Do you ever decorate Easter eggs? If you like the look of pretty eggs but you’d rather be scrapbooking then check back tomorrow, there’s a layout coming that’s inspired by the different ways you can paint & decorate eggs!
See you then,
Jennifer x
DISCLOSURE: Cricut have provided me with a Cricut Explore Machine, some materials including vinyls, and access to the Image Library, to help me write this post. However ALL opinions in this post are my own and not governed or controlled by Cricut in any way.
The post Painted Decorative Eggs With Vinyl Designs appeared first on Jennifer Grace Creates.