Easy Easter Eggs

      Every April Fool's Day my mom would always call me up and try to 'fool' me. This usually involved some kind of unlikely pregnancy or unexpected marriage of someone we knew.
Needless to say, I usually was NOT fooled. But we carry on this silly tradition, with my girls, and friends and husband.  Every new year is a challenge, because my daughters are pretty saavy about this day.
     But, I got EVERYONE this time. hee hee... I guess that makes the Queen of the April Fools (not sure I like that title) but it was fun anyway.
     ...But onto our project for today. Easter is only 2 days away, so get your eggs ready...

Today's project is:    EASY colored EASTER eggs

You will need:
scarves or ties that are 100% silk
    (look in thrift shops)
onion skins (dry)
     save throughout the year, if you can
eggs (not boiled yet)
thin material (like old cotton pillowcases),
or nylon stockings
twist ties (or string)

Now there are two projects of eggs. The traditional eggs I've always made since childhood was a project I did with my mom every year. You start saving the onion skins throughout the year. I always wondered what that paper bag under the kitchen sink held, til one day I peeked and found the skins.

Then of course, she saved her knee high nylons, or old cotton pillowcases for this project, too. She was my original "recycler".

You take an egg, wrap the onion skins around it (the best you can) and slip it into the toe of the nylon stocking, or into the center of a cotton rag. Then you twist tie it shut. If you are using a stocking, you can stack several into one. see photo ->

Then you boil them as usual for 10 minutes (I put them into a pot of water, then get it boiling and start timing. I don't like to drop them into boiling water, because they tend to crack). Unwrap when cool, and you will find wonderfully marbelized brownish colored eggs. (I tried using red onion skins hoping for pink or red eggs, but no, they just are powerful enough to dye).

Now the second Easy Easter Egg dying project is using silk ties or scarves.
If you wrap the egg tightly against the fabric, twist tie it and boil for 10 min.  When you unwrap these eggs, you will be amazed that the pattern on the silk scarf or tie comes off onto the eggs.

When ever I make and give these as gifts, people are so amazed and totally confounded about how I got the color onto them. But it's soooo easy, I hate to tell them that, so I just smile and say "it's my secret".

tip of the day:
Today's tip is more of a suggestion of yet again, one of our Easter traditions.
We would have 'egg wars' on Easter morning. It was usually before we went to church, so we would have a little something to eat to hold us over until the big Easter brunch later.
Everyone would select an egg from our collection, and holding it in your fist with only the end showing, we would clunk them against each other. Then we would turn it over and hit the other end. The one whose egg did not crack was the winner! (of course this all a matter of where the air bubble is when you boil the egg, but it's fun and a nice tradition to pass on)

That's all for this week... HAPPY EASTER!!
:D

Wrap it up!

 I love making new things out of old stuff!

Back home from the Midwest now. I think I need a vacation from my vacation!
Always nice to see everyone, but traveling can be so tiring. I think I'll get busy on some cool recycling projects and get crafting. Always the cure for anything that ails you!

Project of the day:

Handmade wrapping paper

This paper will resemble the handcrafted look of handmade paper, but is so easy.

you need:
~plain white paper, the larger sized the better (this can be butcher paper you can buy in rolls, or paper that was used to wrap something in. That's where I found mine. Nice large sheets I just couldn't throw away)
~spray bottle (can be recycled hair spray bottle, Windex bottle, etc.)
~food coloring
~iron

This is a great project to do with kids. First take a sheet of the paper and crunch it up into a ball. Obviously if you are going to use it for wrapping paper, the larger it is, the better. But you could certainly use smaller pieces (for small packages, or gift cards)
Try not to rip the edges. Crumple gently with this first step.

Then open it up, and smooth it out with your hands. Then crumple it up again, this time it should be a little easier to crunch. Again, smooth it out as flat as you can.

One more time, crumple the paper into the tightest little ball as you can make it. Squeeze hard. Unfold gently, but you don't have to worry about smoothing it flat. You want some mountains and valleys.

Take your spray bottle, fill with about 1 cup of water, and several drops of food coloring. Put your wrapping paper out in the lawn, or on a plastic garbage bag, you do NOT want to let the food coloring get on anything. *It will stain!

Now spray the paper, it will puddle in spots, but that's okay. The more you spray, the more your paper will absorb the color. At this point, the paper fibers have been broken down a bit (by all that crumpling) and it will be softer and more absorbant than new paper.  If there are any wet puddles left, tip paper up and let run off.
Now let it dry. Out in the sunshine is best. Again, this is a good, outdoor summer project. (You can weigh down the corners with rocks or something, so the wind doesn't blow your cool project away.)

When the paper is dry, get out the iron and ironing board. You will iron the paper the best you can. Not all the wrinkles will come out, and that's where you get that 'handmade' look.  Now you're ready for gift wrapping (hopefully it's a project you made yourself from recycled stuff, ha ha). I like to use raffia instead of  ribbon, just because it looks more natural. But any embellishments will work. I stamped designs on my paper also, and then hot-glued acorns on for that woodsy look.

Tip of the day:
I know I've been giving you projects for summer days, but spray bottles and food coloring made me think of a fun thing we did this winter.
My neighbor's 5 year old daughter, Gianna came over with her mom to make a snowman in my front yard. Well, it kind of looked like a snow lady in a dress, so I put some purple food coloring in an empty hair spray bottle, and they sprayed the snow lady's dress and hat. She had so much fun with that. I had to scrounge up a couple of more bottles, with more colors, so she could go out and spray 'rainbows' on my snow.
This idea originated many years ago, when my daughters and I made a snowman, but it actually looked more like a fat cat. We sprayed orange food coloring it and turned it into Garfield, the cat. So if you live somewhere it snows, start saving up those spray bottles for some colorful fun.

That's all for today!

Dee