The original post appears on Southern Ooaks Blog
These eggs would make a delightful craft for Easter or just home decorations.
1. Use room temp eggs...this makes the insides less stiff and much easier to remove. White eggs are good but brown eggs (yard eggs) are a bit stronger.
2. Make a hole with a needle/hat pin. You will need to make a hole on each end and try to line them up..makes it so much easier when blowing the insides out. Slowly twist it in a circular motion until the tiny hole appears. DO NOT rush in!
3. Once you have your holes in both ends take a long needle (I use a doll making needle) and pierce the yolk. Gently cover both ends where the holes are with your fingers and very gently shake the egg to loosen the insides.
4. Now it's time for the FUN part. Hold the egg in between both hands and with your mouth start blowing through the hole (one on top is usually the best one to use) Keep blowing until you feel confident that all the insides are outside. TIP: You can try using a 3cc syringe without the needle.
5. Once you feel that all the insides are outside then it's time to give this little egg a bath. Squirt or run COLD water into the egg. You need to do the "Bath" several times. Fill it up with cold water....place fingers over the holes and gently shake...then blow out the water the same way
you did in step #4.
6. Dry the egg off. This can be done one of two ways: . A) place egg in the microwave on several paper towels for 15-30 seconds or B) you can bake them in the oven at 300 degrees for about 10 minutes. I crumple reynolds wrap up around each egg so they don't roll around. Cooking in the oven I believe makes them much stronger.
7. Once the egg has cooled down to room temp I cover in SoBo glue or Decoupage and let dry overnight. This helps strengthen and seal up any small cracks that may be in the egg. Make sure you poke a needle through the top so you will have a place to put the ribbon for hanging. (if you want to make an ornamental one...you can also make or buy a pretty egg holder to place the decorated egg in if you don't want a hanging one but you will need to keep the top hole open until the end)
8. Once the egg has sat overnight you are ready to decorate. This can be done any many ways.
•Paper napkins. Ever been to a tea or party and the napkin was almost to pretty to use, well those work great. You cut out the designs on the napkin and you have a pretty piece to apply to your egg.
•Tissue paper is another great item. You can cut it or hand tear it to make your designs. Tissue paper
in a solid color works great too by crinkling it up and then placing on egg...kinda gives it that crackled effect.
•Another great source is this little tiny box you are sitting in front of and reading my blog on.....yes..your computer. There are some wonderful free vintage sites you can go to, find some really great images to print out and use. Just make sure that it's alright to do that....most of the free sites I have found do not mind as long as it is for your use and some don't mind what you do with them. Just ask if you have any doubts.
9. Now that you have your design all figured out it's time to decorate your egg. I LOVE to use decoupage,it's a great glue and sealer at the same time. I like to draw an egg on paper the size of my actual egg and place my design out on it.....if you are familiar with decoupage then you know it dries fairly quickly.
Take your image and cover the back in the decoupage or glue (just make sure it dries clear) and place on your egg.
Gently smooth with your finger to remove any air bubbles.
If using tissue paper I usually gently pat the paper down.
Do this step with each image you want on the egg. Let it sit and dry for about 30 minutes.
Once dry, cover the entire egg in the decoupage or glue and let dry overnight. (This might be one good reason to keep that one hole on top so you have means to hang egg so it can dry even)
Now for the really fun step but only if you want to add some "Bling" to your egg. You can do several different things.....you can
a) put glitter in just certain places...highlight an area and make it POP
b)cover the whole thing in glitter or German glass.
For both all you have to do is cover the area in the decoupage or glue, sprinkle the glitter and then let it sit overnight to dry. You may want to repeat the process to cover the egg completely.
