Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Easter Countdown: Egg #1

 Monday while Maddie layed on the couch snoozing and snotting I took the opportunity to set up an Easter basket with crafts and activities to keep her busy for the month. I ended up stuffing about 18 eggs. Some of the eggs are filled with craft supplies and a craft, others have an activity to do for the day, some have numbers that match a numbered craft kit and 2 eggs have flower stickers that match stickers on the calendar for day specific activities. I certainly didn't want her picking the 'Let's dye Easter eggs!' egg this week! I don't think hard boiled eggs last that long. Eww.
 
Maddie was so excited when I explained the basket to her and she couldn't wait to open the first egg.

Last year we started a new tradition with Maddie painting wooden eggs from Oriental Trading and Maddie of course chose the big heavy egg to open first. Typical!

This year we used a great marbleizing technique that I found at Mom's Crafty Space. Maddie chose three different acrylic paints to use and we used a disposable tin foil pan to work in. We taped blank white note cards in the bottom of the pan so that our egg decorating would also leave us with some cute Easter cards too.

Maddie had a blast swirling her egg around in the paint but of course one egg wasn't enough so we grabbed some marbles and tossed them in the pan too.

We ended up making about 6 note cards using the marbles to swirl the paint once her egg was done. To help sop up some of the excess paint we squished a blank white card to the card she painted and made two matching cards before moving onto the next.

I was surprised to find that one of Maddie's favorite parts of the project was washing the marbles when we were all done. {Tip: If you allow your kiddo to wash marbles AND you have a garbage disposal put a tray in the bottom of the sink to keep from loosing any!}

Once her egg was dry I finished up by dating the bottom with a Sharpie and adding a coat of glossy ModPodge. I also ended up adding an M to this years and last years egg.... I will have Z eggs soon enough!

7 comments:

Crystal said...

I recently came across your blog, and love it!!
I just put together a similiar Easter Basket, but I think I am going to have to add another egg to it before I go over it with my little guy! Love the marble egg painting idea!

Bev Cholewa said...

Wow Amanda, I love this one too! We started the flower baskets on Monday. I didn't get the proper clay though, I bought the kind that takes 3 to 4 days to dry. They made the bees and we also made butterflies and lady bugs. It will prolong the painting since we have to wait for each color to dry, but we have plenty of time before Easter. I love the wooden eggs, how long does it take for them to come in? I also love the idea of the glaze. I think I'll glaze the bees, butterflies and lady bugs. Would it work on the flowers as well?
Love your blog,
Bev

Bev Cholewa said...

I almost forgot, love the Easter basket idea too, I may add some of these "eggs" to the Granddaughters baskets so they have something different than the traditional gifts. You are an inspiration!

Christy Killoran said...

Love this!

BittyKitty said...

Wow! what a great idea!! Thank you so much for posting this.

Heidi @ Happiness is Homemade said...

Aww, Maddie's egg came out super cute! Love it! :)

Unknown said...

Glad I drop by your site! Lovin this! A while back I was looking for a easter card for a friend. I had zero luck finding what I was looking for. I told a group of friends about this problem one night while we were having a few drinks. We proceeded to get smashed and make up a bunch of greeting cards we found funny. I had been writing down the cards we made up and the next morning I read them. Much to my surprise the cards were still funny even when sober.