All That Glitters...

Is MESSY!  Geez – I think that’s going to be my last “glitter” project for quite some time.  I’m still finding glitter.  Oh, and a quick tip.  Refrain from using bowls, etc. that you also use for food.  Unless you are looking to bedazzle your food.

I decided to tackle the Glittered Eggs project (or to be more PC – the glittered “sphere” project) just in time for Easter.  I have an apothecary jar that I have probably already blogged about, but just a refresher, I fill it with decorations appropriate for the upcoming holiday (whichever that may be).  For Easter 2011, I had it filled with plastic eggs, but it was ugly and uninspired.  Enter the lovely Martha.

The project calls for blown-out eggs and OF COURSE, one of the tools that Martha lists in the book is for an egg blower. 

Yeah.  Sure, Martha – let me just run to my craft room and get my trusty egg blower.  WTH?  Who owns one of those???

Oh, and she also suggests using quail and goose eggs.  Oh.  Okay.  Sure, I’ll do that.

On the bright side, I was lucky enough to have my Aunt Penny invite me to her house to work on the project.  She watched Peaches McGee while I huffed and puffed and almost passed out blowing out eggs.  I got through almost 2 dozen and I’m embarrassed to say how long it took (and I can’t remember – lack of oxygen from blowing, I’m sure).  Below is a picture of what happens when you blow and squeeze an egg too hard. 

Yep.  That’s egg yolk running down my hair.

The remainder of the project was done at home, and here was my setup.

Note the glitter in the dinner bowls.  *sigh*  At least I was smart enough to use plastic spoons…

After brushing on craft glue, I dipped and spooned the glitter per Martha’s directions.  At first I used a mixture of clear glitter and colored glitter because I was worried that I would run out of the colors and I had so much of the clear stuff.  That was a big mistake.  Any other person probably would have realized that CLEAR DOES NOT SHOW UP ON WHITE.  Dur. 

So, I repeated my mistake, not once, but twice, and after three eggs, realized I would have to use “pure” glitter.  Here’s a picture of the biracial glitter egg…

After learning my lesson, I used only the colored glitter and I think they turned out pretty cute! 

To display them, I made a little nest of green “grass” and set them gently on top.  I finished it off by tying a bow around the jar that matched the ribbon I used for my Easter Topiaries. (I’ve included pics of those as well)

P.S. The best part of the project was Peaches McGee learning how to “blow.”  While watching me almost kill myself with the eggs, she started blowing too.  So cute.

Baa Baa Black Sheep

Have you any wool felt or mohair yarn handy?  I didn't, so I used what I had in my craft room... regular old felt and acrylic, fuzzy yarn.  Sorry Martha, not all of us have millions of dollars to spend on items we'll only be using once or twice.

So the project calls for making two pom-poms.  One bigger than the other and then sewing them together... I purchased the pom-pom maker at Michael's and looking at the directions, thought it would be pretty straightforward.

Thank God for YouTube!  They had a step-by-step instructional video on how to make the puffy little balls, because it wasn't so "straightforward."  Here are what my two balls look like (for some reason, that sounds really wrong)...

On with the project.  After sewing the two balls together, you use embroidery floss and a needle to sew in a little nose and then you glue on little ears made of felt and finally, you glue pipe cleaners on to the "body" for the legs.  

Miss. Martha of course is extra fancy and asks for "wool" felt (because it makes such a difference?) and she also advises you to "cover" the pipe cleaner legs in felt.  It was 9:30 when I finally got to the pipe cleaner legs and they matched the rest of the black sheep, so screw it.  

That being said, it turned out okay.  Although, I did cheat and used the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone again to make it look even better.  Here it is!

I plan on making some more of these, but I am going to purchase white ACRYLIC (i.e., cheap) yarn to make some white sheep to go with my black sheep.  I'm an equal opportunity sheep maker.