Spring Egg Tree

This craft was a total triumph for my Crafting-By-The-Seat-Of-My-Pants-Series. I'd like to say I was being resourceful, but truth be told, I was just too lazy to go to the grocery store to buy an egg decorating kit and I wanted to try using things that were already in the house. So I rounded up the following:

• eggshells (how serendipitous that I am going through a broccoli and cheese egg scramble obsession lately!)
• tissue paper and yarn scraps from Etsy purchases- those Etsy sellers sure know how to send a pretty package : )
• frozen blueberries to dye eggs
  
• homemade glue from flour, sugar and vinegar
• Christmas ornament wire decoration hangers
  
• toilet paper rolls to use as egg holders
• tree branches from pruning our plum tree this week
• pasta sauce jar
• rocks

First, I made some egg dye by boiling frozen blueberries and mixing in a bit of vinegar. I only did a few eggs and just dipped them in repeatedly until I got the color I liked.

Then using the homemade glue mixture I covered the eggs with a paintbrush and tore up small pieces of tissue paper and yarn to cover and decorate the eggs.

I cut up toilet paper rolls and let the eggs sit and dry on them for about a day.

For my tree, I anchored the branches in a jar using rocks. Then I cut tissue into triangular pieces, glued the middle and then wrapped it around the branches to make a "blossom" effect. Using leftover tissue and the wire decoration hangers, I wrapped tissue around the wire to act as an anchor and put them through the holes in the eggs, tied some yarn and hung the eggs from the tree!

It did occur to me as we were doing this (several times, actually) that I could have spent the $2 on a PAAS kit, but I wanted to challenge myself to see what I could do with just whatever was in the house. I totally loved doing this with the kids and I'm hoping that doing crafts like this shows them how to be creative in repurposing everyday items!