CRAFTS: Decorating Easter Eggs

In the run up to Easter, here's an egg decorating special for you all!

I love decorating Easter eggs. It's one of those crafts than can be enjoyed by kids and grownups alike. 

You can create cute and funny animals or make your eggs as fancy as you like.



Many people boil eggs before decorating them, but if you want your works of art to keep, you can blow the eggs out and paint the empty shell. 

Hard boiled eggs sometimes work better for small children because they break less easily. If painting with children, don't forget to use non-toxic water based paints.

Below is a step by step guide to blowing out egg, plus a few decorating suggestions. 

Have fun!

Materials:

For blowing out the eggs:

Eggs

A nail or a thin pointed screwdriver

Round toothpicks

Clear nail varnish or picture laquer

For decorating kids' "animal eggs"

Paints and brushes

Glue

Scissors

Cardboard

The cardboard tube from a toilet roll

Instructions:

1. Wash the eggs. Yeah, you know where they've been!


2. Start by making a small hole at each end of an egg. Twist the sharp end of a thin nail or a pointed screwdriver against the end of the egg, applying pressure carefully so the egg doesn't crack. Repeat on the other end of the egg.







2. Once the egg has a hole at each end, push a toothpick in and prod at the yolk inside to break it. 










3. Once the yolk is broken, hold the egg over a bowl and blow hard into one of the holes. The egg will begin to pour out the other end. If it doesn't, use the tooth pick once more. Once the egg is empty, wipe it dry. (Then make a delicious tortilla española or a revuelto later.)

Decorating the Animal Eggs: 

1. Decide what decorations you want to do. I decided to do three fun animals - a chick, a pig and a frog. Paint each egg entirely with a base colour first and leave to dry.

2. Make the "animal feet" using the cardboard tube from inside a toilet roll - and cut some ears and a snout for the pig, some eyes for the frog and a beak for the chick...

3. Glue the bases, eyes and other body parts onto the animals and paint them…

Painting the Fancy Decorative Eggs:

1. Paint the eggs in a base colour and leave to dry. If you want the eggs to 'harmonize', then choose only three or four colours. I chose royal blue, bright red and gold.

2. You can either paint the eggs standing in eggcups, painting the top half first, then letting it dry and doing the other half later. Or you can push them onto skewers, knitting needles, etc. Place a little bit of scotch tape below the egg to stop it from sliding. Stick the skewer or needle into a halved potato to keep it steady. Now you can easily paint the eggs all the way round.

3. Show your Easter eggs off in swanky egg cups or shot glasses!

My family is looking forward to the Easter holidays already. Wishing you a lovely spring break too!

GUEST CRAFTS: Aimee & Kienna's Santa Hand Print

When Aimee told me about this Santa hand print decoration she had seen online and was planning on making, I jumped at the chance of seeing how she did it. Immortalising your toddler's hand print as a Christmas ornament, what a fab idea!

It is also a lovely reminder of your baby's tiny hands in years to come, Aimee explained, and if you make one every December, you will eventually have a complete set of very special Christmas tree decorations - not to mention gifts for family.

(I tried to find the original posting online to credit the work, but could not find it - so a big thank you to the ingenious person who first created this.)

The Santa is fairly straightforward to make. The base is salt and flour dough, with your baby's hand print pressed into it, then cut out, baked and painted. Do prepare a day or two for the whole process: the salt dough has to to cook thoroughly, set and cool, and the paint and fixer need to dry.

As is customary, I asked my guest crafter a few interview questions - so you can read up all about Aimee's family, photography and life in Spain at the end of the blog.

And now without further ado, here's how to create your own hand print Santa.


Ingredients for salt dough:

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup of salt
• water

Materials for decoration:

• Acrylic paint, in red and white
• Black permanent marker
• Paint fixer spray or varnish, or clear liquid glue
• Paint brushes
• Ribbon

Instructions:

1. Combine the ingredients for the dough, adding tiny amounts of water at a time, until dough is just kneadable.

2. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin or wine bottle, until it is about 1.5 cm thick.

3. Press your child's hand firmly into the dough, as many times as you like.

4. Cut around the hand prints, and make a small hole for the hanger ribbon.

5. Bake at 200 ºC for 3 hours until the dough has gone hard. (The dough may not harden completely in the oven, but will do so when the ornaments have cooled.)

6. Take the ornaments out of the oven and let them cool.

7. Paint and decorate the Santas as follows, and once the paint is dry, spray with fixer, or cover with varnish or clear glue:

STEP 1 - First, paint them completely white. Then mix a touch of red paint with white to create a pink tone, and cover Santa's "face" with it.

STEP 2 - Follow this with a bright red hat and nose. 

STEP 3 - Add a white moustache.

STEP 4 - Wait for the paint to dry and add the black lines with a marker pen.

Aimee and I followed the instructions for the decoration as they were posted on Facebook, but you can unleash your creativity and use other colours or ways of making Santa's face up. You can even turn the finger prints up top, and make your figures into the Three Wise Men with crowns - or if it's the wrong time of year, into Easter chicks, Halloween witches or anything you like.

Enjoy making your Santa and have a very happy Christmas!

* * *

Guest Profile: Aimee

Aimee was born and raised in Manchester, UK. After her parents moved to Spain she came over for a six month visit and met a handsome musician. The rest is history. Aimee now lives with Gary, their daughter Kienna, Aimee's mum and Gary's dad in a typical Andalusian pueblo in the Malaga province.

A few weeks ago Aimee thought that she had hit the big time by winning the Euro Lottery jackpot, only to find out that her mother had read out the numbers on the ticket rather than the ones drawn. For a whole ten minutes the whole family had thought they were multi-millionaires. Obviously a bit of a disappointment followed, but Aimee reckons that at least she now knows how it feels to have won 26 million.

Aimee's photography business started out as a hobby three years ago and has grown from there. She is now working on setting up a studio to work from home and you can view Aimee's work on:

 www.facebook.com/aimeegoodinsonphotography

For this month's guest profile, Aimee answered a few questions for our readers:

Q: What is your least favourite Christmas food?
Aimee: I'm not keen on fancy food, I do like it simple and traditional.

Q: What has been your daughter Kienna's cutest moment so far?
Aimee: Everything she does is cute. She and Felix snogging is top of the list though.

Q: If you could chose to be unicorn or a fairy, which would you be and why?
Aimee: Fairy - more chance of flying about causing mischief without being caught.

Q: Favourite toy as a little girl?
Aimee: Dolls, Barbies and my cousin's spud gun.

Q: What would you take on a desert island?
Aimee: A good book. I'd make the most of the peace and quiet!