Friends for all!

Last week I went to Costa Rica on business. Prior to the trip, I made some little "friends" for my team members there. I had a lot of fun making these little guys and my goal was to put a little of each person's personality into each. Each is also the person's favorite color and animal:

Acorn

Once he lived in a high, high tree.

Now he's come to earth just for me!

Armadillo

Am I the only person out there that is fascinated by armadillos? Surely I can't be! I got a bug to sketch up this little guy. I like him- I think I'll keep him.



Everlasting Easter Egg - How To

Easter is such a fun holiday, a great opportunity for family time and crafts. To honor the holiday, I decided to create a tutorial for everlasting Easter eggs. Real eggs that you can hold and reuse year after year!

The first step is to make a hole in both ends of the egg. There are Ukrainian Easter Egg kits that include a little blower that allows you to only use a single hole by injecting air into the single hole and allow the pressure to push the egg out. The two-hole method allows you to extract the egg without specialized tools. You can use a nail, screw or rotary tool. I chose to use the rotary tool because it uses the least pressure and there is less chance of crushing the egg.

The next step is to use a needle, wire or other long, thin item to puncture the yolk within the shell. I used an eye pin. This will allow you to blow the egg out by blowing into the top hole with a steady and strong breath- kind of like blowing up a balloon.

Waste not, want not. I caught the egg in a bowl for an omelet.

Once the egg is out, rinse the egg shell out to the best of the best of your ability. Then gently dry off the egg shell with a towel.

You can then dye the egg (again, the Ukrainian Easter egg method is a lot of fun, but takes patience), paint it or decoupage.

I chose to gild mine, I may choose sheets of leaf if I do it again. I am not sure the leaf flakes accomplished the effect I wanted. For this or decoupage, I would start with a clear sealant which can double as a sizing for the leaf or glue for the paper.

The finished product! I made Ukrainian Easter eggs a few years ago- that example is on the left. The gilded egg is on the right. The flakes are yellow and rose gold with some oxidized pieces with green and blue coloring.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Two For One

For Christmas '09, my mom bought me some lovely beads. She gave me two strands of the same type of glass beads, in two different shapes: round and oval. They have beautiful variegation and have shades of blue, green, amber and everything in between. I have had them in my collection for a while and have been trying to think of the best way to use them together.

I chose to make a double strand necklace that doubles as a long necklace (24 inches). The short strand uses the round beads alone and the longer strand uses the oval beads with Celtic inspired connectors.

I am very happy with the versatile result and I can't wait for my mom to see it!