Another birthday is coming up in our clan. A niece's son turns 11 next weekend, meaning it is time to figure out a way to present his birthday cash in a way I haven't done before. I saw currency folded into a car and tried that. Perhaps my money wasn't crisp enough. Perhaps I wasn't patient enough. Perhaps the best photos of that project (on sites that did not accompany directions) were because the creator glued things in place!
* Ahem *
Time to set that aside (flatten out the multi-folded bill and return it to my wallet) and start with something new. How about the goose that laid they golden egg? Do kids still know about that or even the term "good egg"? I will have to think about that before making the card that explains why this child is a good egg.
On to the project: I started by blowing out a raw egg. I used a pin to create holes in opposite ends of an egg, then expanded them by inserting a tapestry needle (much thicker in diameter) in both ends. In one end I pushed the tapestry needle in further to break up the yolk. I saved the wedge of shell that broke away, thinking I would be able to glue it back in place. That didn't work for me, but the hole needed to be that size for insertion of the money.
After rinsing out the egg, here it is drying. These two pictures show the sizes of the two holes.
Breaking apart the yolk before blowing air into the small end made this easy. I let this dry overnight.
First I rolled the bill up tightly to insert into the egg. Uh-oh...the bill is longer than the egg!
I folded the bill (two of them, separately) in half and then rolled them up for insertion. Unfortunately this broke more of the shell.
My original thought was to have torn tissue paper over the holes, sealing them shut and being nearly perfectly smooth. That hole wasn't cooperating. I backed it with some crumpled tissue paper and began patching the hole.
Let's just say that I now fully understand why my husband would rather pay someone to tape and sand drywall repairs than to do it himself.
I persevered and covered the whole egg. If it was going to have rough ends, that would be the look over the entire egg.
Time to paint this. Hmmm...painting it with acrylics and a brush would probably make all the imperfections really stand out. I didn't want that! I placed the egg in my expensive paint booth (a shipping carton from Amazon) and got out my Dylusions ink sprays.
I tried layering a few colors but didn't like that look, wiped them off and used the color Pure Sunshine.
Rotating the egg meant that my sprays overlapped, plus the torn bits of tissue paper also overlapped meaning the coverage of color was splotchy.
What to do? Embrace the splotchiness! Adopt the "I Meant To Do That" attitude! I sprayed, rotated and sprayed again. By spray, I mean light mists of color.
Hmmm, it still needed something. I shook up a bottle of Perfect Pearls Mist, lightly sprayed that on and dropped Ultra Fine Crystal Glitter from Stampendous on the wet Pearl Mist.
That process was repeated a few times to cover everything lightly and make a dazzling mess of my spray booth.
As you can see in the above photo, there is still a dimple in the end where the cash was inserted but I can live with that. The whole thing will be broken in order for the birthday boy to get his cash anyway.
Would I do this again? Yes, especially after giving up the idea of a perfectly smooth surface. Thinking of another very old term, "egg money" , I would do a whole carton of eggs this way with different denominations in the eggs. It would be fun to watch the recipient's face as each one is broken and counted.
This chick rates this project eggs-cellent.
Gosh, I just cracked myself up!
No comments:
Post a Comment