mossy Easter Eggs diy, a game you can make, plus recipes and more
March 08, 2023
Today I have a few beautiful and easy spring projects to share. The first up is moss covered Easter eggs. I googled different methods but found all of them difficult to make with lumpy results. Do you want to know how to make really pretty mossy eggs the easy way? Read on for that, plus more egg decor, a homemade game and recipes!
You can begin with faux eggs or real eggs. I use real eggs I have blown. If you have never blown eggs before, it's very easy: With the tip of a sharp knife tap a hole into both ends of egg. Poke a toothpick into one hole and poke it around to break up the yolk and make contents easier to remove. Place egg over a bowl and blow contents into bowl and save for baking, scrambling, or frittata, see recipe below. To clean egg: fill halfway with water, shake and blow water out. Repeat. Place egg with one hole down in egg container and let dry for 24-48 hours. If you'd rather use faux eggs, click here, the buying possibilities are endless and they are very inexpensive.
The diy is simple of course! I found it best if I painted my eggs green first because a stark white egg would sometimes show through the moss. However if you start with brown eggs you won't have to bother with paint. I used preserved moss which stays green (dried moss eventually turns brown), a blender and white glue. Break up the moss and put in a blender and whirl until it has broken down but not granular. Coat your egg with glue and place it on a "pillow" of moss and cover completely. Shake off excess and let dry overnight.
Cover your surface with paper. |
I found it easier to skewer my egg and then paint it with glue. |
Next I twirled the egg around until it was fully covered with moss. This egg was white, but after this I painted them green prior to covering in moss to hide any bald spots. |
The moss eggs I did on my own, but we had Carter for a week and I tried to think of some projects we could do together. We made glitter eggs by spray painting the eggs first with metallic paint, then we used glass glitter to cover. I only let him use craft glitter which is made with plastic, and he was very sweet to sit beside me and watch me spoon the glass glitter onto the eggs. He has been around me so much in my craft room that he knows the difference and is pretty good about following safely rules but I do keep an eye on him.
Glitter, especially glass glitter, can irritate eyes if you're not careful. I let Carter paint the glue and I spooned the glitter on. |
Our next Easter project was a homemade memory game. At five years old, my grandson loves to play memory because he always wins! I had an idea to make our own personalized game and ended up with an idea of using bottle caps. First, I asked our local Mexican restaurant to save caps and they did, but when I went to pick them up at least half of them were bent and all of them smelled like a frat house the day after. So, I bought some! Who knew you could actually buy bottle caps online? I bought these caps and it's enough for us to make another game at either Halloween or Christmas. I also bought some cute downloads from Etsy but you could easily draw your own designs, or use paint or glitter or whatever, but I loved these vintage downloads, shopping links below. They arrive as instant printable downloads. First, we painted the caps with two coats of spray paint. Next we cut out 25 sets of pictures (we play with 50 bottle caps) and affixed with a dot of glue and that was it! I think you could seal with resin but we didn't bother with that as we were ready to play the game!
You will need 1" circles from either of these Esty vendors:
They sit in a basket in my living room ready for play.
We have enough caps to make another game, maybe with a Halloween or Christmas theme.
You might wonder what is in that picture above. One of Carter's favorite things is to go into my craft room, and in a bin, see below, I keep odd pieces of packing material, tissue paper rolls, small boxes, etc. He roots around in the box, and armed with scotch tape and safety scissors he creates robots and spiders and monsters. He was so cute, when he left after the week was over, he decided to leave his crafts here for us to play with, but only if we would be careful. Honestly, I leave these out for a week or so, then hide them away, then after a month if he hasn't asked for them, I throw them out. I could not possibly save everything he made. I do notice though that he loves the creating the most, then he will show it off with pride and play with it for a short time, then he has lost interest and doesn't miss it when it's gone.
In this box I save odd packaging pieces that I think he will want to use in his creative endeavors. |
I have a bin for felt, one for fabric, one for ribbon, etc. and one special one for Carter's "craft junk". He loves it and pulls it out when he visits to see if there's anything new in there that will inspire him! Such a doll!
The week he was here was rainy and windy and very very cold, and he had a cold to boot, so our big outdoor plans had to be cancelled. We had such fun things on the list too! We were going to visit the baby goats at the dairy, walk to pet the Shrek Donkey, and play at Magical Bridges and we were so sad to let go of them. By the way, have you heard about our crazy California weather? I don't know how much attention it gets outside of the state, but our weather has been crazy with a lot of ran and wind and snow at low levels. My son was driving on the freeway in San Jose last Sunday (about 20 minutes from our home) and there was snow on the freeway! Part of our fence blew down and our roof is leaking and just try to find a repair man. Because of all that and his cold we stayed home most days so I had to scramble to think of some activities to keep us busy. So besides crafts and playing good guys and bad guys all the time, we made cookies and muffins and also these cheese straws which were such a hit, and nice enough for a dinner party, in fact, I'm bringing them to a party on Friday night.
Cheese straws are a nice baking alternative to sweet treats and fun for kids to make. We used this recipe. |
To make a frittata I usually use what is leftover in my refrigerator. Here I have a half red onion, a half red bell pepper, some cherry tomatoes and a bunch of asparagus that I didn't have a plan for. You will need about 4-6 cups of chopped vegetables. I saute them in my 12" Lodge Skillet (that I wouldn't want to live without) with a little bit of oil or butter. After several minutes when they are crisp tender I added the halved cherry tomatoes and bits of leftover cooked bacon, then poured over about 5 beaten eggs mixed with salt and pepper. You can also add whatever spices you like and of course the vegetables can change with whatever you have on hand. If you have leftover cooked vegetables then you won't have to saute them. You can also add cheese but if you are dairy free, you can omit that and it's still fabulous. The egg mixture may not completely cover the vegetables and that is fine because it will puff up in the oven. Bake at 400 F for about 20 minutes or until set.
I've got a lot of knitting projects I'm working on and I hope you'd like to see them because I'm planning a works-in-progress post for this weekend. I hope all is well with you, and can you imagine, spring is right around the corner!
xo Kristen
This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase an item from an affiliate link, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting the blog. If you'd like to make a comment, please scroll down. I reply to each comment and that response will appear directly below your comment. If you would like a personal reply, please know that I use the Blogger platform and they do not give me your contact information when you comment. If you would like a personal reply you can contact me using the contact form on the right side at the very end of my website. If you would like to receive Knitionary posts by email, please subscribe here.
1 Comments
You are so sweet. I love reading about all the activities you share with your grandson.It makes my cold dismal day so much better.
ReplyDeleteYou make my day when you make a comment!