Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After

Rediscovering Life after Retirement

DIM, Did It Myself: Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza

DIM, Did It Myself: Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza

Hello, pinners and crafters and DIYers,

Welcome to the April Pinterest Challenge Blog Hop, hosted by Erlene at My Pinterventures.  The purpose of this Pinterest Challenge is to motivate all the participants of this hop (and YOU too) to not just pin, but to make it happen!  This month’s post is entitled DIM Did It Myself:  Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza because, you guessed it, I am crafting some unique Easter eggs.

DIM, Did It Myself: Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza

You know I live in the southwest, El Paso, Texas to be exact.  And anything cactus makes my heart sing!  I have featured a couple of cactus pinspired crafts in the past – my cactus painted rock garden and my cactus string art project.  Revisiting those posts has my heart beating pitty-pat a little faster, and even more anxious for summer so I can pull out all of my cactus decor.

Then there’s the book page egg that is a nod to my years of working as a school librarian (and reader).  And yup, I have even done another book page craft before, my (slightly bumpy) book page pumpkin.

Aside from a love of books and cactus, the pinspiration, if you will, for these two craft projects came from this pin for book page eggs by Inspire Co. and this pin for cactus eggs by Better Homes and Gardens.  Both pins provided very easy-to-follow directions so I won’t recreate the wheel, here, by sharing my own step-by-step instructions.  However, I am super excited with how these eggs turned out.  Like a proud mama, let me share a few photos with you.

DIM, Did It Myself:  Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza

DIM, Did It Myself: Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza

For this project, I purchased an $8.99 bag of 6 wooden eggs with my 50% coupon at Hobby Lobby and a $3.99 bag of Spanish moss that will be enough of the stuff for all the eggs I’d ever want to make.  Found a package of 3 tiny terra cotta pots at Dollar Tree for $1.00.  Gosh, I love that place.  I always have a dollar!!  Used acrylic paint, iridescent glitter, ribbon and pony beads that I already had.  Bonus:  I could actually lay my hands on those supplies because I recently did a thorough spring cleaning in my craft loft!  Life is good.

First up, the book page Easter egg.

Book Page Easter Egg

I used pages from old paperback books for this project.  Tore them in small pieces and began gluing them on with brush using a combination of white glue and water.

DIM, Did It Myself: Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza

I was careful (obsessive) about putting the type all going the same direction.  However, it might be more whimsical if the type on the torn book pages was going in different directions.  OCD is the name of my game, though.

DIM, Did It Myself: Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza

Once the egg was covered,  I used my hair dryer to blow it dry a bit.  Then added a layer of watery glue onto which I shook some very fine iridescent glitter.   Used the blow dryer again to dry that.

DIM, Did It Myself: Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza

The last step was adding a bit of ribbon and a little of my pussy willow (PC bought for me at Pike Street Market) to the egg.

DIM, Did It Myself: Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza

When I was last in Hobby Lobby, I saw some ornamental boiled egg holders…wish I had thought to buy one as a pedestal for my book page egg.  Might make the trek across the mountain for one tomorrow.  I think this little egg is so sweet.  PC teases me because I am always picking up stuff I find on the ground – marbles, pennies, pretty rocks.  Found this little key a few weeks ago and attached it to this egg.  A little bling.

Cactus Easter Egg

Using acrylic paint, I mixed up two shades of green to paint my cactus eggs.  The hardest part of these projects was trying to figure out where to lay the eggs to dry.

DIM, Did It Myself: Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza

Until I thought of using my hair dryer to speed nature along.

DIM, Did It Myself: Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza

For the stickers or thorn on the darker cactus egg, I used my Presto! correction pen.  On the lighter egg, I used a fine tip marker to make little thorns.  And forgot to take a pic.

DIM, Did It Myself: Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza

Couldn’t decide between sequins or beads for the little flowers on top.  The original directions suggested making flowers from tissue paper.  But these fumble fingers could work all day and not make a very pretty tissue paper flower, much less 6 of them!  Decided to go with the pony beads which I Super glued to the eggs.

DIM, Did It Myself: Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza

I give you my Pinspiration Easter Eggstravaganza eggs.

DIM, Did It Myself: Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza

Pinspired Photograph Light Box

While taking pictures of my finished eggs, it dawned on me that last summer I created a light box to use in taking pictures for my blog of small things LIKE THESE EGGS.  Check out that post, here.  So, I dug my light box out of the closet and set up one of my light kit lamps to take the following photos.  I really like the way they turned out.  Yay, me!!

DIM, Did It Myself: Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza

I am so proud.  You would think I laid these eggs myself!

DIM, Did It Myself: Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza

Here’s a photo of my light box.  Then Purrsimmony politely leaped onto the box and broke through the tissue paper top.  Will be making a new light box now.

DIM, Did It Myself: Pinspired Easter Eggstravaganza

Your Turn

To join next month’s #pinterestchallenge, click here to sign-up ⇒ May Pinterest Challenge

Let’s meet this month’s Pinterest Challenge hosts!Pinterest Challenge Blog Hop

My Pinterventures •  Cookies Coffee and Crafts
Sew Crafty Crochet •  Sum of their Stories
The DIY Nuts •  This Autoimmune Life  •  Love My Little Cottage
Across the Boulevard •  Home Crafts by Ali •  Farm Girl Reformed
Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After •  Our Good Life • Suzerspace
 Mom Home Guide •  Our Unschooling Journey •  Purple Hues and Me
 Intelligent Domestications •  Teadoddles •  Alayna’s Creations
Renewed Projects •  Lydia’s Flexitarian Kitchen
 Decorate and More with Tip  •  Stone Cottage Adeventures

Now, let’s see what the other hosts have created ⇓⇓

Have you made a special Easter craft this season?  Or decorated the house in a different way?  Maybe you are trying a new recipe or a whole new menu for Easter or Passover dinner.  Won’t you brag a little and share with me??

I had fun working on these little eggs today.  Did a lot of it while working with my brother and sister to put out little fires for our mom.  Did some laundry, ironed but otherwise enjoyed my day.  Then PC gets home and I feel guilty.  Really need to find another job, if we can just get mom settled.  Managed to get her set up with additional care during the day and someone to look in on her in the evenings after she fell again last night.

Please take a few minutes to visit the blogs of some of the other Pinspired gals.  Pretty sure they will blow us away with their creativity.

Hugs and kisses,

leslie

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Comments

  2. How fun is that? You did a great job. I really like the words on the egg – that’s my favorite. I’m not very crafty but I appreciate the ability of others! That lightbox is very cool – no wonder your photos are so good!
    xo,
    Kellyann

    Reply

  3. They are adorable! And when I saw your photo you took with your light box, I thought it was the original pinterest image – great job!

    Reply

  4. Hi Leslie,
    How clever and cute!
    Was happy to catch your contribution over at Sizzling Towards Sixty…I am so lucky and pleased to have found all of my blogging friends.

    Reply

    • Thank you, Nancy. Glad you found my post at Sue’s house! She was so kind to invite me to guest host. I am so fortunate to finally have some blogging friends who are my age and enjoying and experiencing life from a similar vantage point. XO

      Reply

  6. I never would have thought to make cacti with Easter eggs but yours are adorable. I like all of your little touches. I share your love for Dollar Tree and used some of those little clay pots in my Easter crafting this year too.

    Reply

  8. Wowza, your light box photos are amazing, what a difference it makes!
    2 cute ideas, I love both. Different but equally fun.
    Incidentally have you heard of sparkle mod podge?It is super sparkly like the glitter you used but way less messy! Fun stuff if you can get hold of it.

    Reply

    • What???? Sparkle Mod Podge? How my gravy. Thank you for sharing. Had no idea. Going to get some of that stuff pronto! The light box does make a difference in my pics, I guess. Funny, I made the box and forgot about it. And now my kitty has torn it up. Need to fix it and USE IT!!

      Reply

  9. THESE ARE SO DARN CUTE!!! I squealed when I saw them, that is hot darn cute I thought they were. I did a cactus themed front porch last year and this has me thinking that I need to get the stuff back out there soon!! 🙂

    Carrie
    curlycraftymom.com

    Reply

    • Don’t you love cactus!? That is the theme for my summer decor. Can’t wait to get it out, too. Thank you for squealing about and complimenting my Easter eggs. You made me giggle.

      Have a blessed weekend, friend. Hope the bunny finds your babies.

      Reply

  11. These are so stinking cute!!! I want to make the book ones immediately! Thanks for sharing this idea and this linkup…it might inspire me to actually start trying some of the crafty things I’ve pinned!

    We’re a Dollar Tree loving family too! I have on good authority that the Easter Bunny did some of his shopping there… 😉

    Reply

  13. You did such a good job! I love all of these eggs, and the little pots you got to put them in are adorable. Great job. And I’m glad that your light box was able to be dug out and used it again. The pictures look awesome. For the book page egg – have you ever tried using Mod Podge? I love that stuff!

    -Lauren

    Reply

    • I need to get some Mod Podge. Once upon a time, in another life, I think I used it. Thank you for the suggestion. Aren’t the terra cotta pots cute? Is it tera cota? Why is spell check underlining those words? Really enjoyed doing something crafty for a change. Thank you for the kind words, cutie!

      Reply

    • I really enjoyed making these eggs. So much of my days lately have been spent worrying about my 92 year old mom. It was fun to take a few hours to make something and to feel the success of having a craft turn out right!

      Reply

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