Paper Easter Eggs

Hi! I hope you all had (and are having) a wonderful Easter, He is risen! I have a little "off the page project I did this week in honor of the holiday. I didn't get it done in time for the big day, but Easter is 50 days long, so I'm still is season! ;)

I found these beautiful Easter eggs on a blog last week and wanted to make some for myself because I LOVE that color of blue and they would make a great centerpiece for my dining room table to work with the blue accents in my kitchen. For those of you who haven't been in my house, here is a shot of my kitchen sink for reference.

I went to IKEA in search of the napkins the blogger used, but came up empty handed. I decided to try to make something similar with my paper crafting supplies. I bought some paper mache Easter eggs from JoAnn's and pulled the paper, punch, gesso, Mod Podge, and Stickles from my scrapbooking supplies.

I painted the eggs with the gesso to give them a white base. I did a quick two coats. They aren't perfectly white, but I am okay with that. If you want the totally white, you can use a thicker paint or more coats.

Then I punched a bunch of flowers from the blue patterned paper. I punched about 5-6 per egg. I then used Mod Podge to attach the flowers and then seal them to the egg. I put 3 coats of Mod Podge on to make sure the flowers were really sealed in.

I started this project by just decorating one egg to see if it would turn out how I envisioned. The first egg was a piece of cake. I had no issues with any of the steps. It even sit nicely on its end after I had done this next step. The other 4 eggs did not go quite so easily. :( I created the swirls with the Stickles by squeezing them directly from the bottle onto the eggs. I ended up doing about half of the egg at a time, so that it could rest on the other side to dry... I still had issues with them rolling and had to touch up a few spots...

Here's the final product. I had this little basket laying around, so I got some blue grass to put in it.

All in all, this was a fun project and now I have these pretty eggs to decorate my table!

Saint Peg Dolls

A few months ago, a good friend wrote on her blog about a saint peg doll exchange that she participated in. I had started to see ideas for painting peg dolls, but nothing that inspired me to try it. After I saw her post, I said to my friends, "We must do this!" What a wonderful way to get kids interested in the saints! A few weeks after that, things got rolling and a group of 14 of us decided to do it! Some of us chose to paint two saints, others chose to do one. 

I chose St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and St. Nicholas for two of my children. (It is kind of fun to see them all lined up, isn't it?)

First, I chose to paint St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. I was inspired by several dolls of her that I found on Pinterest. I had fun painting these. My favorite part is the rosary, which I made with Liquid Pearls, so it has a bit of raised texture.

Next up, I painted St. Nicholas. Again, I was inspired by some dolls I found on Pinterest. I struggled with the arms on these, and I am still not satisfied. I started by painting them in the gray like I did on the St. Elizabeths, but the contrast with the red was too much, so then I used the rusty brown, which helped.

I wanted all of my children to have a peg doll of their patron saint, so I also made a St. William of Monte Vergine/ Vercelli and St. Adrian. Since I only had to make one of each of these, I went  little more detailed on them.

First up was St. William. There is a legend that says that he was building a church with his only companion being a donkey. A wolf came out of the forest and ate the donkey. St. William ordered that the wolf take the donkey's place. The wolf obeyed, realizing that he had interrupted God's work. He carried the stone and supplies for St. William. (source)

St. Adrian was a pagan soldier that was inspired to belief by the Christians he saw dying for their faith. He went on to become a Christian and died for his faith.

Neither of these saints had dolls available to look at on Pinterest, so I went from illustrations of them. In about a week, we will be doing our exchange, I am so excited to see all the other saints!

Name Sign Tutorial

Today I am sharing the name signs I have made for my kids over at Scrapping Everyday Miracles.  A few years ago, I was inspired by an article in a magazine by Jessica Sprague to make a sign with clothespins to hang my children's artwork.  I tweaked the idea to work with what I had available and have now made 4 of these signs, one for each of my children.  Here is how I do it:

Materials:

wood sign

wood letters to spell out name

2 clothespins

patterned paper

acrylic paint (2-3 colors)

scissors

foam brush

Mod Podge

sawtooth hangers

pencil

Step 1

Trace letters onto the back of patterned paper.  I used patterned paper on every other letter, but you could do it on all of your letters.  Cut out letters.

Step 2

Paint sign and letters.  I paint the edge of the sign a different color than the face.  I painted the letters the same color as the edge of the sign or a third color, just not the same color as the face of the sign.  Any letters that will have paper on their face only need their sides painted.

Step 3

Attach sawtooth hangers to back of sign.  It is much easier to do this before you add the letters to the front of the sign, trust me.  :)

Step 4

Paint the clothespins.  I try to get all of the surfaces.

Step 5

Attach paper to the front of the letters using Mod Podge.  Coat the letters with Mod Podge to seal them.

Step 6

Make die cuts to decorate the face of the sign.  For this sign I made lizards in three sizes using my Cricut.  Attach them to the sign with Mod Podge.  Seal the sign with at least 2 layers of Mod Podge.  Let dry.

Step 7

Once the Mod Podge is dry, attach the letters and clothespins to the sign using wood glue.

Here is the final product, hanging on the wall!

To see the other three signs head over to Scrapping Everyday Miracles!