DIY: What to do with all those plastic eggs!

With Spring in full swing (for most of us) and those infamous Easter egg hunts just around the corner, I rummaged through my posts and came across this gem.  Here are some great ideas on what to do with all those leftover plastic eggs... and if you have some wooden spools hiding in your stash, you can use those too!

Years ago when my oldest daughter Mariel was little, we hosted an Easter egg hunt in our backyard.  I never threw away those plastic eggs, but I also never again filled them with candy.  They sat, empty, for more than 16 years, and were moved to two different houses.

and hiding in my stash were a bunch of vintage wood spools (I love these!)...

Looking at them side by side, I remembered the Faberge Eggs and their elaborate stands.     

I decided to make a mixed media version of these classic eggs.

1.  I pierced little holes in the tops of the eggs.I threaded a piece of string inside, so that I could hang them to dry.

2.  I got out my collection of scraps, and randomly adhered the scraps to the eggs with Matte Medium.  Then I dabbed all of them with Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold and Indian Hue Fluid Acrylic paint to unify them a bit.  Here's how they looked:

3.  To give them some individual character, I dabbed them with different colors of craft paint, mixed with glazing medium.

4.  I stenciled different color flowers onto a sheet of deli paper, using the Garden Flowers and Leaves stencil.  It's very springy, don't you think? 

5.  I cut out the flowers and leaves, and adhered them to the eggs.  The parts of the deli paper where I did not add color "melted" into the background, making it look as if I had stenciled directly onto the eggs!

6.  Using Iridescent Gold Paint (Golden Fluid Acrylics), I stenciled the Five Hamsas onto white tissue paper.  I "cut" them up using a thin wet brush, and adhered the bits to the eggs.  I also stenciled some of the borders from the Stitch a Greek Border Stencil in gold as well.

7.  I painted the spools either gold or black, and adhered the borders to them.

(Hint:  This is why stamping or stenciling onto tissue paper is such a cool technique.  I NEVER could have gotten such crisp images on the spools if I tried to stencil directly onto them.  But with the tissue paper, the un-stamped or stenciled parts become translucent as the matte medium dries, leaving a crisp image!)

8.  Using black paint and white tissue paper, I stenciled "Now is the Time" words.  I adhered the words onto the spools and eggs too.

 (I used Weldbond glue, which eventually became transparent after I took the pictures, but a glue gun would have worked too!)

I'm in love with these eggs.  I think they look classic, yet fresh and whimsical.  Here's my Pinterest board with other egg-alicious ideas.   Are you doing any spring-inspired art or craft?  Share your links in the comments. 

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