Not Your Typical Easter Egg

I don't normally get overly excited about what I consider the 'secondary' holidays.  Christmas is the big one for me and that's usually the only one I decorate for.  But, when I'm out there checking out other blogs, I see so many people doing vignettes and banners and displays and having parties and all kinds of crazy things for almost every special day that comes up.  So, I decided I'd put in a little extra effort for Easter this year.  Besides, even though I don't love the taste of eggs, I do love the look of them decorated.

I couldn't really figure out what I wanted to do with them so I decided to experiment with a little hodge podge of different techniques to see what I came up with.

Here's what I used to make the first batch:

The eggs are styrofoam and I always try to keep a little piece of styrofoam from a box or something in case I need it for something like this.  Just stick a toothpick in the egg, and the other end in the foam and you have a no mess way to paint and dry~

Steps:
1) Coat your eggs with glue.

2) Sprinkle some glitter on top.

I tried a few different colours and patterns:

3) Add a coat of Mod Podge (of course, I used my fav, Sparkle Mod Podge, because you can never have too much glitter).

I'll show you how they look dried later on.

Now for my next set, it's pretty much the same idea with a few different materials.

1) Paint the eggs with some acrylic paint.  I used a lovely shade of tan.  Not typical for Easter but I wanted all of the eggs to have some kind of matchiness to them.

The acrylic paint goes on quite sheer.

2) While your eggs are drying, head over to The Graphics Fairy  and pick out some beautiful vintage images.

Print them out and cut around the edges.  I should've made mine smaller.  If you shrink down the image to somewhere around 1/6th of a page it'll probably be close to a good size to work with.

3) Wet the image with plain old water to make it more flexible.

4) Paint a coat of regular Mod Podge onto your painted egg.  Adhere your image and paint another layer on top.  I also added some more paint. 

I know, they're looking pretty ugly right now but at this point I was hoping it would still all come together.

While those two were drying I decided to try to Mod Podge with a pretty napkin as well.  Napkins work great with Mod Podge.  Because they're so thin you can usually make them shape to almost anything.

When they were all dried I had to add one more layer of my favourite craft ingredient:

As everything was drying, I gathered up some pretty lace and ribbons, got out my cloche I made at Christmas time (made with a cheese dome thingy and a glass candle stick).

After everything was super dry, I just added them to the cloche, tied the ribbons along the bottom edge, and ooh la la, a collection of not so typical Easter eggs was born!  And not as ugly as you thought they'd be~

 I think I need to add some more glittery ones.  Are you decorating for Easter?   Leave a comment below and share your ideas on egg decorating techniques or just let me know what you think of this project.

I added a couple of new linky parties. 

Check out the linky party tab and see if you can find them~

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Have a great week everyone!

Inspiration Shot: Masai Cheetah

There's something about this guy that just draws me right in.  He fascinates me.  I love his coat, I love his eye liner, I even love his ears.  He looks so soft and cuddly but I have a feeling that looks are very decieving.



Cheetah, Masai Mara, Kenya

Show and Tell: Calendar Art Update

Remember my Calendar Art tutorial I did waaaaaaaaaaaay back last fall?  I don't blame you if you don't, it was one of the first projects I shared and I didn't have anywhere near as many visitors and bloggy friends as I do now.  (Which makes me super duper happy!)

Here's how it looked last fall:

As I mentioned in the original post, this wall is in a funny little alcove with a super low ceiling, and directly in front of the door to my very scary 100 year old basement.  So, not alot of people see this area, but I like to decorate funny little spaces like this with something special and eye-catching.

Here's how I changed it up at Christmas time with all red shoes:

And that's how it stayed up until................today~

But now I've created a nice colourful springtime look:


This space is so hard to take photos of.
I literally went cross eyed trying to get a good shot.

You can take a step back in time to 2010 and learn how to make this project here .  This is the calendar that I used:

I couldn't stop myself and I bought this year's version of the same calendar.  I can't believe it but, I think it's even prettier!  I can't wait to add this years images to my Calendar Art~

What do you do with your old calendars?  Leave a comment and share your ideas.

Hidden Treasures: Come on...Get Happy

If you're not part of the Etsy community (yet), you're missing out on an incredible place that is totally committed to the art of the handmade.  It's a wonderful place to find everything you need, or just want, while supporting fellow crafters and artists.  It's also just a treasure trove of  great ideas and inspiration.

For something new this year I thought I'd post a treasury of various Etsy sellers each week.  Click on the thumbnail to visit the shops and see what else you can find.  And while you're hanging out at Etsy you can feel free to visit me at the Etcetorize etsy shop~

'Come on...get happy!' by Etcetorize

All things bright sunshiny happy yellow~

1 Large Tissue Pom........ FiestaPomPom $4.00	Handmade Green Olivine ... EstyloJewelry $25.00	Fabric Heather Bailey B... fabricdawg $7.00	Yellow Layer Sweet Cott... thesisterladys... $40.00
Yellow Bead Lot - 136 p... KristinesSuppl... $1.00	KingBecky's Yarn Ca... KingBecky $10.00	Honey gold chalcedony a... salemplus2 $30.00	the yellow orange butte... BalletArt $20.00
PRINT - lemon fruit BRI... thebigharumph $8.00	Bright Yellow 20 Inch M... idari $24.99	Bumble Bee Rose Ring - ... lizhutnick $13.00	25 A-6 Envelopes Astrob... Classeighinks $6.25
Pettiskirt Bubble Rompe... DreamSpunKids $35.00	LOT of 100 YELLOW Royal... mochasof $10.00	Yellow Tutu & Polka Dot... theblingbowtiq... $21.99	Large Yellow Tote Bag Patzbag $28.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

Braided Bracelet

On one of my many work trips this past month I was lucky enough to spend some time at the West Edmonton Mall.  For those of you not in Canada, West Edmonton Mall is a shopper's haven.  It's the largest mall in North America with over 800 stores and services along with a wave pool park, hotel, ice rink, amusement park and more.

While I was there all of the stores had their spring stock out and I was so happy.  Everywhere I looked there was a definite hippie bohemian vibe with lots of peachy tones and earthy greens, two of my very favourite colours.  Of course, I bought a few things and was inspired to add an accessory to my new spring wardrobe!

Here are the supplies I used:


Add some jewellery glue if you have it.

Steps:
1) Thread three embroidery threads through one hole in a separator bar and tie a knot, leaving a tail of at least an inch on the outside.

2) Braid the embroidery thread the length you need to fit around your wrist.


I found it easiest to secure it first so I could use both hands to braid.

3) At the end of your braid, thread the tail end of the thread through another separator bar and tie another knot.  Don't worry about cutting excess thread yet unless it's really getting in your way.

4) My separator bar had five holes so I repeated these steps four more times, moving to the next hole each time and changing up the combination of thread colours.

Mr. Whiskers found this whole process very fascinating!

 


 5) Now came the most time consuming and frustrating part.  But really that was only because I had to do a bit of trial and error until I figured out a good solution.  I was going to use these little butterfly clips to gather up all of the threads and then hook onto a jump ring.  The problem was that they were far too small, I had too many threads to contend with, and I didn't have any larger ones on hand.

Eventually I found something that worked.  So, first trim all of your threads so that they're the same length, leaving about 1 inch in length.

 I tried to do this next step without glue but I just about tossed the whole project.  If you have nerves of steel and a larger clip you can do it, but I recommend adding some glue to the tips of the threads and sort of gathering them all up together, as well as a few dabs inside the clip to hold it all in place while you're trying to clamp it shut.

I had to search high and low for my jewellery hypo cement glue but eventually I found it.  It's very strong smelling and once it's on your skin, everything sticks to you.  You could try hot glue but I'm not sure that would be any easier to work with.  Despite it's bad qualities, the hypo cement glue really works.

6) Now just carefully guide all of your threads into the clamp and using some pliers squeeeeeeeeeeeeze it shut.

Ideally I would only have one on each end gathering up all of the threads, but the clamps I had on hand were small, so I had to separate the threads into two bunches.

7)  Add a jump ring to each clamp.

8) Connect the two jump rings on each end with another jump ring.

My fingers are now coated in glue~

9) Connect a clasp to the middle jump ring.  If you have a magnetized clasp that works best on bracelets.

All done!

Once I got the hang of gluing the threads into the clasps it all went pretty smoothly.  I have really tiny wrists and I always end up making bracelets a bit too big so this might be something I give away to someone I know.  I might make myself another one using all the same colours or add some beads or something.  I'm not sure yet.  I love embroidery thread because it comes in such a huge array of colours and textures so the sky is the limit~ 

Have fun with this and let me know if you try it out.  Leave a comment below.

As usual, I'll be posting at linky parties throughout the week so make sure to check out the tab up top.  And don't forget, if you're a follower you can post your button on the "Follow My Friends".
Every month I'll do a feature on one of my new friends!

Have a great week!