Easter Eggs - the "How not to" tutorial.

We love Easter in this house.

Come to think of it, we love any and all Holidays that involve chocolate, large meals and/or gifts - so Easter is pretty high up on our list of favourites.

Every year the girls do an Easter egg hunt through the house and then a neighbourhood hunt outside - and they love it.

They don't even eat all the treats they find, it's just the hunting that they love.

I mention it because over the years we have amassed a ton of plastic eggs.

I like them for treats, but not for decor, so I thought I'd see if there was a tutorial on how to make them look like real eggs.

Sure enough Debbie Doos does!

I will confess that I just skimmed over her tutorial instead of following it step by step - so you'll see below all the ways I went wrong:

First, I filled the vase with the number of eggs I thought would make a fun Easter display.

Once I had an amount, I spread them out on a box lid (covered in tin foil) and spray painted them in an off-white (ivory) colour.

First error - crappy spray paint.

It didn't have enough aerosol in it to spray the paint evenly, so it dripped and drooled all over the eggs.

What a mess!

Second error - I sprayed too heavily.  I should have done several light coats instead of trying to cover them completely each time.

This lead to puddling under the eggs, which then made them stick to the tin foil.

Once I had a fairly even coat on the eggs, I thought I'd try splattering the alternate coloured flecks on.

Third error - you can't lightly "fleck" with a paint brush.

UGH!
Another coat of off-white spray paint to cover this mess.
A little sanding to remove the puddled bits underneath.

I was starting to think they might be worth the $8 to just buy them done.

A stiff toothbrush and some of the girls' paint and I was kind of getting the hang of it:

Kind of…

We're going to chalk that one up to chicken poop.

After a lot of frustration, I finally got my eggs complete.

They do make a nice Easter display.

If I'd followed Debbie's instructions, I would have come out of this with free Easter eggs.  (I have latex paint I could have used to paint them individually).

Instead, in trying to take a shortcut and spray paint them, I came in at $12 - for two cans of paint (1 crappy and 1 good).

The same sixty eggs from Pier 1 would have cost about $40.

Worth it?

Yeah, I do think they're cute.

Have a great one!
  
 



Linked to:

It All Started With Paint

Between Naps on the Porch