Do I have Egg on my Face?

Egg-blowing is the new Pilates. You heard it here first.

It’s Easter season and I decided to decorate a few eggs. So I poked holes in the ends of five eggs and started blowing the contents out. Have you tried this? It’s an alternative to using hard-boiled eggs. This way, you empty the egg shell so that you can decorate the eggs and keep them displayed without having to refrigerate them overnight.

It’s been a year or two since I blew out the insides of eggs and I’d forgotten that it takes quite a bit of force to get the goo out. By the time the fifth egg was empty, my exhausted cheek muscles felt like they’d been pinched by a hundred grandmothers. And my abs felt like they’d done a million crunches. I realized I’d conquered new levels of multitasking: working out my core and prepping for Easter. And that’s why I’m promoting the newest exercise trend: egg blowing for fitness and home décor.

Mid-way through the egg blowing I thought, “I’d better take a photo of this.” It seemed like a good idea, since I sensed a blog post in the works. But maybe it was the lightheadedness speaking. Because I’ll tell you: I did take two photos, and they are possibly the least flattering photos I have ever taken in my life. So I’ll spare you the horror and I will assure you that a close up of me, forcing air into the egg clutched between my tired lips is bad enough to picture in your head. You don’t need the visual. But the effort was worth it. My body may be tired but the eggs are empty. This is what we artists call suffering for our art.

I need a nap.

Anyway, I now have five empty eggs and I want to decorate them with supplies I haven’t used before on Easter eggs. One year I tried a silk transfer method. The pattern from your silk fabric transfers onto the eggshell for beautiful, colorful results. Other times we have used the PAAS egg decorating kits, which are fun. But please—I have a studio (crammed) full of delightful (and random) supplies and I thought it would be fun to decorate eggs using some of my craft stash.

 

 

 

I ended up decorating the eggs with decoupage. I used a clear product I already had to stick paper to my eggs, but you could use glue if you had some at home. Once I had my adhesive on part of the egg, I pressed small pieces of tissue paper onto the surface until the tissue was flattened against the egg. Then I secured it with more glue. This is so easy and because tissue paper is translucent, you get cool layers of color. On a few eggs I added a little bit of ribbon, pieces of paper doily or tiny silk flowers. I also gave makeovers to a few eggs I’d saved from previous years—adding tissue paper to the color already on the eggs. Keeping previous years’ hollow eggs in a Tupperware box in the garage is a good way to protect them from year to year, and to add to your collection. In related findings, keeping previous years’ eggs in a Tupperware box in the garage (alongside tons of other decorations and many bikes and boxes of random stuff) is not a good way to deal with the garage clutter. But hey, I’m only human. And egg decorating is much more fun than garage mess sorting.

Whether you celebrate Easter or Passover or simply the magic of spring…Whether your eggs are plastic or dyed or bedazzled or scrambled…

Happy Spring!