Thursday, March 14, 2013

Spring Craft Projects

I am smack dab in the middle of a raging case of Spring fever!  I have been be-bopping around blog land seeing Spring things for weeks, but our weather just wasn't making me feel it yet.  Finally, in the last couple of weeks we have been being teased with some Spring feeling weather, so I have been piddling with a few Spring crafts.

Last week I had a sick puppy that required way more hands on attention that my kids ever did!  Since she demanded that I pretty much sit with her constantly, I found a couple of projects that I could pull off while playing doggie nurse.
 
First up, cherry blossom branches.  I have been seeing cut branches with beautiful blooms showing up on tables and mantels and buffets.  They just seem to shout SPRING IS HERE!  I am not fortunate to have anything that I could snip branches from here in my corner of the South and since I was home-bound with the puppy, I had to create my own. 
 
I trolled Pinterest and saw several tissue paper versions that looked nice so I decided to give it a try.  Thanks to what seems to be never ending wind here anymore, my yard was littered with sticks that I hadn't picked up yet (finally, vindication for procrastinating!).  I picked up a handful of those and rooted through some of the tissue paper I had packed away in the attic from my old gift basket business and found two shades of pink paper.  Perfect for some cherry blossoms. 
 
The biggest (most time consuming part) was cutting all the tissue paper!  After that a bit of folding and a little snip here and there and my "blossoms" were ready to attach to the branches.
 



Figuring out the best way to snip and twist took a bit of trial and error but in the end I think they turned out just fineEven with doggie duties the time this project takes is about an hour and the cost...maybe $1.00!



 
I will be posting my Spring mantel in the next few days but here is a little sneak peak at my Cherry Blossoms.

 
Next up, a little Easter craft.  I have seen some of the prettiest Easter eggs lately on blogs and Pinterest.  Unfortunately, all seemed to need one thing or the other that I didn't have.  Finally, I saw an egg that sparked my creative side.  This is big ya'll.....I recently had thought that my creativity might be tied directly to estrogen levels (thanks to my MIL who pointed out that I only seemed to like to mow and work in the yard and might be turning into a man..bless her heart).  Scary stuff since as of late my estrogen levels seem as up and down as a roller coaster ride.  So any spark of desire to create anything was a welcome sign.
 
To start this craft I needed some eggs.  I initially thought I would remake some of the 2,000 plastic beauties residing in my attic, but the paint didn't want to grab on the way I wanted it to for this project.  Hopefully, I will figure out how to make them work at some point because using real eggs has been an experience.
 
Getting a hole in without crushing the egg was dicey...thankfully I manged to figure it out and have now improved on the idea by using a Dremel tool. 
 
 
 I seriously strained my cheeks blowing out the insides and have had a headache for a week. I knew at some point in my life all that hot air would come in handy!  Mini just couldn't help herself....what a flattering shot! Gee thanks.
 
 
Now we are getting somewhere.
 

After blowing and blowing and blowing...then washing the eggs out and then nuking for 15 seconds to dry, I got down to business.  I gather my supplies (okay I threw everything on some old  newspaper, dug a pencil out of Wonder Hubby's tool belt and used same uber chic paper ) and semi-sketched out a design.  I also found some dimensional paint that wasn't dried up....whew thank goodness or it would have been another, I don't have the supplies so no go project.

 
Okay, enough of that "designing" I do better by just doing, so I penciled a design on my eggs. Then I "traced" over the design with dimensional paint.
After that it is literally a waiting game......
 
 
A piece of PVC pipe was an eggcellent holder!
 
 
After they were all dry I simple painted them with white craft paint.  TA DA...this is the 1st one
 
 
I have several different designs I want to try as soon as I have feeling in my face again, but I love how they turned out.
 
 

Thanks for stopping in to see what I have been playing with lately!  Have a great day.


I am joining the party at 320 Sycamore....for my Blossoms under $10.00 under an hour!

under $10 under 1 hr spring 2013
http://www.320sycamoreblog.com/
 


13 comments:

  1. Those eggs are beautiful. What a lot of work but so worth it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love the dimensional paint on the eggs. As a child we ALWAYS did our easter eggs that way (blew out the yolk - not the paint). I might try your idea this year. Thanks! Saw your link at 320 Sycamore's party.
    Kristina (a fellow Southerner - I too love the beach and am there a lot)
    from www.thriftysouthernpilgrim.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Fellow Southern Blogger here! Thanks for visiting Real Southern Living! I love both of these cute projects!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Holy smokes those eggs are bee-u-tee-ful! I don't think I'd have the patience to sit there and blow like that! LOL! Thanks for visiting my blog!

    Tania

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh my goodness those eggs are AMAZING! I definitely would not have been as patient as you. Your patience paid off. Also, thanks for stopping by my blog! :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Love the little cherry blossoms and those eggs ... those eggs are to-die-for! Love them!!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love that shot of you blowing out the eggs :) What a great idea to use the dimensional paint on them!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Those eggs are unbelievable. I would have never thought they were real eggs.
    And I can't wait to see how you use the cherry blossoms.
    D

    ReplyDelete
  9. My girls blew out some eggs the other day and we were hysterical! They couldn't believe how it all shot out of the eggs!

    And I love your cherry blossoms - come on spring!
    Kelly

    ReplyDelete
  10. Oh my gosh, I remember doing that to make Christmas ornaments back in the day. It's all coming back to me, thanks to your photos. Ha! Love it! The result with the dimensional paint is beautiful. I'd be all about having some of those cherry blossoms too, but I don't have puppy sitting time to give me the excuse, and my boss probably wouldn't find it a good use of my time at work. Too bad.
    Liz @ Quirky Vistas

    ReplyDelete
  11. Gorgeous eggs and love the cherry blossom project...you are so very talented!...Looking forward to your Spring Mantel!

    ReplyDelete
  12. I really, really love BOTH projects!! I want to try both of them, and if I'm going to get to the egg decorating, I had better get cracking.

    No pun intended. ha!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thanks so much for stopping by!!

    Great Spring projects....

    No sign of Spring here... 3more inches of snow last night...

    Hugs,
    Debbie

    ReplyDelete

Please take the time to leave a comment. I love getting to know my followers and getting feedback on my blog. I mean who likes to talk to themselves right?