Hippity Hoppity - Part III: The Prequel

Prequel you ask?  For this project I went back in time to a Martha Stewart Living from years past - 2010.  I have actually had that magazine sitting on my night stand for two years and never went through it.  Why now?  Well, to be honest, I was not that excited about the Easter crafts in this month's issue and wanted to see if there was something fun to do with the kids in one of the past issues.  There was!

Martha made eggs from paper mache.  White on the outside with a pretty color on the inside.  So Cute and a great project to do with the kids - or so I thought.

I'm not sure what Martha used for her paper mache mold.  I used balloons.  My kids and I each chose a balloon and a colored paper for the first layer which would become the inside once the egg was "cracked."  We had a choice of pink, green or Christmas tissue paper (what I had left over from gift wrapping.)  Ellie and I chose pink, Ben green.  I used the standard paper mache recipe, flour and enough water to make a nice smooth mixture.  I tore the tissue in strips and we got to work.  Ellie put one finger in the paste mixture and said, "this is dirty."  That was the end of her involvement.  Ben did a great job on his inside layer, but lost interest after that and asked me to finish it.  Sigh!

I actually love doing paper mache so no problem here.  I used one layer of colored tissue for the inside and two or three layers of white paper on top of that, letting the layers dry somewhat in between and letting them dry completely after the final layer.  I ended up with nice hard eggs.  To cut the cracked top I started with a knife and then went to scissors which gave cleaner more precise cuts and didn't mess up the inside as much as the knife.  Although Martha's eggs were pure white on the outside, we decided to cut polka dots from the pink tissue for the outside of Ellie's egg.  Ben decided to go for a pink stripe.  They are Easter eggs after all.

Pretty cute.

Jacqui