3 Trees, 3 Dozen Easter Eggs, and 6 Hours Later...

After seeing this craft idea in Woman's Day magazine, my mother-in-law, sis-in-law, and I all decided it would be fun to attempt ourselves:

Cute, huh? And it looked simple enough!

So we gathered our needed supplies...

• Foam Trees
• Plastic Easter Eggs
• Paper Napkins
• Scissors
• Hot Glue Gun
• Spray Adhesive
• Modge Podge
• Paintbrush
• Easter Grass/Gift Confetti
• Container for tree (optional)

...and got to work Saturday morning.

 

This is the napkin pattern I chose. It looked Easter-y enough to me and it was all Hobby Lobby had really for bright patterns (I was kinda disappointed!).  It actually ended up being really neat because we were able to create many different designs on the eggs since there were three patterns on the napkins.

Start by peeling off the layers of the napkin--this will help the napkin stick better to the egg. We realized halfway in that we had only been taking off one layer when there were really two (hard to see, and very tricky to get off!). It stuck better when we took both layers off, but it was pretty see-through, so we did a little of both. Also, on a side note, the magazine said to use white Easter eggs but those are not that easy to find. We got colored eggs which actually provided more to the design element. You'll see.

 

 

The magazine also said to cut the napkin into diamond shapes. This helps with being able to glue them on easily. However, after a while we got tired of being so meticulous and started trying different things of our own including squares, circles, and rectangles. You'll see this later too :)

 

 Now's time for the modge podge. This is Rose podging her egg (notice the large brush...yeah...she switched to a smaller one later when discovering that was much easier). And as with any time you modge podge, you have to be careful of not getting too much or too little. 

 Due to the fact that you're podging (yes, I made this word up) eggs, you have to do the first side, let it dry, then do the other side. We found it easiest to do the top and bottom last. Here are all our eggs drying!!

 Rose and I spraying the grass on our trees...taking a break from the eggs (trust me, we needed it!).

Some of my favorite eggs...

 These two were mine and both were with the diamond pattern.

 This one is one of Diane's! I liked the two patterns she chose and how they overlapped.

Rose did this one and  you can see how the color of the egg comes through and has a neat effect on the paper's pattern.

Another one of mine..using rectangular strips. This is another fav...there are some wrinkles, but you can't really see them in person unless you're inspecting the eggs.

And yet another of mine...

After you're done with the eggs and they are done drying, hot glue them to the tree The example had them all in rows, but we decided to mix it up a little, both by having different sized eggs and randomly gluing them. Looking back now, I also notice the example had an egg at the very top of the tree (I'll have to go back and add one). Anyway....after all that...

taaa-daaaa!

 

 Mine! I got brown grass because it matched the bucket I bought and goes better with the rest of my home decor.

 Rose's! Fun and bright!

 

Diane's! Very bright and fun! Definitely Easter-y.

I seriously don't think the pictures do them justice. They look really cute. We were proud of them....granted, we cracked a lot of jokes along the way about how sick we were of making eggs (really the reason we got kinda lazy about cutting out the napkins!), how our trees look like cousin "It", and how we weren't sure we would even be done in time for Easter! It did take a lot longer than we anticipated, but it was for sure worth it for the time we were able to spend together--crafting, laughing, and bonding.

We also thought how it would be fun to make similar trees for other holidays, especially Christmas. I can just envision now a white tree with bulbs or pinecones on it...hmmm....

 Proudly showing off our creations.

But we're sure glad we're done!! Haha! Love these ladies.

P.S. Have you ever done a craft that took you way longer than you anticipated?! Did you feel like it was all worth it in the end?