Sometimes, the simplest craft projects are the most deeply satisfying. They connect to some primary aged time in your life when play dough was the loveliest smell and plastic spreaders were your weapon of choice for any and every craft project.
Anna is an addict – a craft addict – I mean I think she may need help because she has a family and 4 part-time jobs and instead of sitting down with a large glass of wine infront of the telly spends her “spare” time doing craft of all kinds. She kindly agreed to let me share her Easter egg project which you can do with your family for the princely sum of £1 – yes that’s right for less than the price of a tube of Pringles (we do have a project to do with those tubes but that’s for another day).
We all know how difficult it is to find things the kids love (big and small) to do when you have one of those all too frequent horridly cold rainy days. With the holidays upon us, this should bring a smile or two to their faces and keep them busy for awhile. Anna has made several eggs in varying colours and created a little egg bunting in her kitchen to decorate the home aswell as make rather gorgeous shabby chic home accessories.
So grab a pinny, a child and the following items and let’s get crafting…
YOU WILL NEED
- cling film
- PVA glue
- water
- wooden stick/stirrer
- small bowl or old yoghurt pot
- balloons – water bomb size for small, standard for large eggs
- embroidery thread/string/wool/yarn in any colour or colours you like
- mini chocolate foil eggs
METHOD
- Put your pinny on and place a medium sized piece of clingfilm onto your table.
- Put a mix of 50/50 PVA glue to water into your pot – small ramekin size is best, corner yoghurt pots also good.
- Select your balloon and blow up, not too big or it might pop! Then tie a knot.
- Choose the colour thread you want to use and place into the glue/water mixture and stir using your stick.
- Wait for the thread to absorb the mixture for a couple of minutes. Then carefully lift out and find the beginning of the thread.
- Hold your balloon, place the thread onto the balloon and move the balloon around the string so it starts to cover it. Make sure you move the balloon around into different angles so you create a sort of “mesh” effect. If you get a knot in your thread, don’t panic. Place the balloon onto your cling film and just gently loosen the thread till more feeds out into your hands ready to carry on winding.
- Once you have reached the end of your string you can neatly tuck the last bit under one of the other strings – the glue when dry will hold it in place and it will look finished.
- Now you have to be patient and allow the balloon to dry – leave on the clingfilm and you can start on another balloon as you’ll have plenty of glue left to use up!
- Once dry, the balloon will naturally have shrunk. You can now pop it with a small pair of scissors and pull through the bits to leave the string egg.
- You can now find a slot big enough to squeeze some eggs inside and ta dah. All done.
- You have made your very own string egg. Well done!
Hope you have fun making this with your family and please feel free to share photo’s over on our Facebook page. We’d love to see what you end up creating. I think we’ll go for some Easter bunting and see how many we can make.
Remember, adventure is out there.
Nat x