Easter Egg Centerpiece

Here is a craft that I have seen several versions of on Pinterest and I have been wanting to try it for ages. Mia and I finally gave it a go, and not surprisingly, it isn't the most kid-friendly of projects. I decided to use embroidery floss since I don't have much yarn on hand and I am surprised at how expensive it seems (at least for what I would use it for; knitters and crocheters might disagree, but I have no clue). Anyway, I had plenty of embroidery floss since I did a fair bit of cross-stitching in my B.C. era days (Before Children). I had also seen that this blogger used embroidery floss instead of yarn, so that seemed promising. I was worried about using glue, though, having remembered a flop of a project we tried two years ago for Valentine's Day that involved yarn and glue and thought we might want to try something else for our eggs. I found this blogger who used Mod Podge, which is awesome stuff, so I figured it was sure to work. So, that is how I decided on embroidery floss and Mod Podge for our Easter egg craft.

I originally thought I would be hanging these either individually or stringing them together as a garland, but when they were done I wasn't sure if they would hold up, so I decided to put them in a green footed glass bowl and use them as a centerpiece instead. I think they look great even if we did end up with one casualty in the process. It either did not have enough embroidery floss wrapped around it to hold it together, or else it was just not tightly wrapped and it sort of fell apart in a way that resembled a disintegrating birds nest. I just tossed that one out and was satisfied that the rest turned out okay. It was too bad, though, because the peach color would have made a nice contrast since we ended up with two blues (one is more of a periwinkle) and two pinks. However, this made the final count seven eggs, and odd numbers do always seem to make a better balance decorating-wise, so that was serendipitous in a way. I love the fresh, spring colors and the kooky, organic feel of the strings. I hope that they will store well because I want to display these for many years, although I guess we can always make more. They were not difficult and the materials are inexpensive. Here is how we made our string egg centerpiece.

{I LOVE how this turned out!}

Materials:

• water balloons
• embroidery floss
• bowl
• spoon
• 1/4 cup Mod Podge
• 1/2 cup water
• newspaper (to protect work surface)
• scissors
• cups/mugs for holding eggs while drying
• pin (for popping balloons)

Directions:

1. Protect your work surface with newspaper. (Or, if you have one, a vinyl tablecloth would have worked even better for this.)
2. In a bowl, mix up the Mod Podge and water. I used a ratio of 2 parts water to 1 part Mod Podge.
3. Blow up your water (or any type) balloons. Mine came in a package of 100 from Dollar Tree and were easily blown up by mouth. I found that they resembled eggs when they were inflated to approximately 4-5 inches long.
4. Cut several lengths of embroidery floss and set aside. Mine were about 18 inches, but no longer than 24 inches because that just got tricky to keep from getting tangled. 
5. Dip the embroidery floss into the Mod Podge mixture and wrap around the balloon. Repeat until it is covered as desired (or you are out of that particular color of embroidery floss; this was always my stopping point). Tip: If you are lucky, you will have a little helper dipping these for you and then laying them aside until you are ready to use them. (We found that this project required fine motor skills that were a bit beyond Mia's 6-year-old grasp, and she is a very experience crafter, so that should give you an idea of the age that this is appropriate for. Fortunately, we found that she could help me in this fashion, and still be involved in the process.)
6. Set the covered balloons into cups or mugs to allow them to dry completely. One post I read said this would take 24 hours. We let them dry overnight and they seemed fine in the morning (about 12 or 13 hours later), so we went ahead with the next step.
7. Once dry, pop your balloons with a pin and carefully pull out the broken balloon bits. Tip: You might want to do this over the trash can since the balloons will be covered with the dried out Mod Podge mixture and it flaked off all over the table.
8. Display your eggs. You can hang these with more embroidery floss or fishing line. You could also string several together and hang them as a garland. You can place them in a bowl or vase for a centerpiece, as I ended up doing. There are many possible ideas for Easter decorations with these eggs.

   

   {Here are the eggs while they are drying.}