paper eggs

I’ve been seeing pretty pretty papered eggs around town lately, but have been unwilling to yield to their $4-5/egg price tag.  Part of that is just plain cheap stubbornness, part is the fact that I was certain I could make my own papery eggs.

So, I did.  Using nothing but glue (mixed in roughly equal parts with water), pretty paper, and plastic eggs.  I tried several different methods of attaching the paper – I cut strips, ripped strips, did a cut/rip combo – but none of them really worked very well with the patterny papers that I was using.  And in the end, this is the method that seemed to work best for me:

1.  Measure and cut a paper rectangle.  This was hardly a scientific process – I simply wrapped the paper around the egg to determine the width of my rectangle (allowing for the paper to overlap slightly, of course).  For the height, I laid the egg next to the paper and guesstimated (cutting the paper slightly larger than the egg).

2. Cut fringe on both long sides of the pretty paper.  It doesn’t have to be exact, but you do want to make sure that your fringes are kind of narrow so that when you wrap them around the egg, they’ll overlap instead of bunching and wrinkling.

3.  Insert your fringe-y paper into a (roughly) 1:1 glue:water mixture.  Let it sit for a minute or two, then pull it out and wrap it around your egg, with the fringe-y sides towards the top and bottom of the egg.  (And in case you’re wondering, yes, I do own the world’s largest container of glue).

4.  Smooth the paper around the middle of the egg, and then smooth the fringes down at either end, overlapping them – especially at the very top and bottom of the egg.

5.  Let dry overnight.  I set mine on saran wrap to dry, and it seemed to work out okay.

6.  Enjoy.  I put all of my eggs out in my ceramic egg tray, but chances are they won’t stay there for long…  After all, I do have to put together an Easter tablescape fit for a queen my in-laws…

Cost Breakdown:

Elmers Glue: Already had.

Pretty Papers: Already had.

Plastic Eggs: Already had (though I’m sure you could grab a bunch at a Dollar Store for… well, you know… a Dollar).

And!  If you’re interested in other thrifty-cheap-springy decorating projects, you can check out Living with Lindsay’s $5 Challenge, in which she challenges all of the interwebs to create beautiful crafty masterpieces for $5 or less.