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You may have seen them earlier this week, but over at iLoveToCreate I made some super nifty eggs and I couldn’t not make some more! This round of Easter eggs pair bold and bright paint colors with gold leaf. To be honest I think they turned out so amazing and I love these abstract and gold leaf Easter eggs super big time!
It had first started out with just the colored eggs with gold leaf but then I started feeling all artsy.
And I started just going crazy. I figured these paired with gold leaf would also be awesome and things just progressed to this state of Easter time awesome you see here!
Separated out they’re great, but all together I think that the effect is great! All I need is to put them in a tall clear vase (if I can find the darn thing) and I’ll have some vibrant and unique spring decor! Want to see how to make yours? Well, it’s a good thin you’re here because showing you how is kind of what I do!
For this project you will need:
- Dyeable plastic Easter Eggs (from WalMart)
- Martha Stewart satin paint set
- Good quality brushes with soft bristles
- Mona Lisa gold leafing kit
First, the eggs. This is what you’re looking for. The packaging distinctly says “dye” on them but they don’t take dye for anything in the world. They float in the dye and even sitting in for an hour when you pull the stupid thing out it has such a faint hue that it’s hardly worth the effort.
Because I figured that there was no way these suckers would NOT soak up tie dye I thought to try that. And since the packaging specifically said to NOT use water and ONLY use vinegar I poured some in and got to shakin’.
And this happened. The little rubber top stopping the dye and vinegar concoction flew up and hit me in the nose followed by a geyser or super fizzy tie dye. My hands took the brunt of the spray as I yelled and covered the top of the thing up. Unfortunately I’ve got some serious painting to do in the kitchen now, my favorite tee shirt looks like I killed Barney in it and I got to go to the doctor the next day.
You may or may not be surprised to know that nobody at the doctor’s office said anything. Not – hey, what’s up with your hands, girl? or What did you do? Because this is normal in the world of me and they just assume I’m going to come in missing a huge chunk of skin on one finger where I accidentally glued myself the the lens of my DSLR or have a hot glue burn running down my shin because something crazy that I still don’t understand went down. And when I come in with a rhinestone glued to my upper arm, it’s not a nurse or a doctor who fill me in. Nope, it’s another patient. But let’s learn the lesson that tie dye and vinegar are never to be mixed and move on…
Now I took a gazillion pictures of where I tested every brand of craft paint on the eggs to see how well they covered and how many coats it took for good coverage. It was boring. So all I am going to say is the others took a minimum of three coats whereas with the Martha Stewart paints some required two and others only a single coat. Now paint those suckers up.
And for the abstract ones just paint a stroke of color here, there and everywhere. Have fun with it. Get messy (see my work space). This portion of the project is so freeing and awesome!
And now since I lost all of the images of my doing the gold leaf and I don’t have time to retake them since I’m heading out for Spring Break in just hours I’m going to use my words and instead show you a lot of pictures of gold leafed eggs I made.
There are two bottles in your gold leaf kit. Take the adhesive and brush a medium-sh blob or two onto one side. Make sure the glue doesn’t pool up. Apply a sheet (or a portion of a sheet) of the gold leaf onto the glue. Tamp down with your fingers or the back end of your gluing brush and set aside until kind of dry. Repeat for the other side. Set off and let dry completely. I let mine sit for about 2 hours.
Take a clean, dry brush that you may not really want to use anymore (because we’re about to fray the crap out of this sucker) and brush away the excess gold leaf that didn’t glue down. The pattern will be really interesting and not exactly like what you daubed down giving it a nice effect.
If you’ve never worked with gold leaf, go ahead and do one and see that you like the effect you are achieving before fancying up your full dozen.
And that, my friends, is that! Happy painting!
