Egg crafts
Five blown eggs, a box of buttons, and an afternoon that got out of hand.
The Easter eggs, finally, made over a weekend with a good deal of help and a rotary tool that had arrived the week before and was looking for something to do.
They are blown shells sitting on things, mostly. Each one ended up with a name and a situation, which was not the plan at the start.
The sailor
A rowing boat, which meant two oars were non-negotiable, plus a compass and a bailer for credibility. The planks and the water were drawn in pencil first, gone over in permanent marker, then coloured in.
The oars are toothpicks. Squares of paper glued flat to the ends with a glue stick, left to dry, and the blade shape cut out afterwards. Cutting the shape first and gluing second does not work, as we found out.
The shell sits on a concave button, held with a small adhesive cushion, which is what stops the whole thing rolling off the shelf.
The one with the umbrella
Striped, with rick-rack trim round the edge and a turquoise bead on top of the handle. The handle is a toothpick, and attaching it involved skewering him, which caused some upset at the table.
Button base again.
The pram
Wheels are two pairs of buttons on toothpick axles. White cotton bedding. The hood stays up because the sun was out.
One of the adhesive cushions went on crooked and stayed crooked.
The car
A button steering wheel superglued to a piece of macaroni, and the macaroni stuck inside the shell with a cushion pad. No windscreen wipers, on the grounds that it was not going to rain.
There were two crash helmets on offer. The one without a chin strap would not stay on. I took the shank off one button with the rotary tool trying to make it sit flat, so the other one got a string threaded through and tied under the chin. Better looking and probably safer.
The one in the bath
A checkerboard floor drawn on a piece of cardboard with a marker. Plastic beads for the tub feet, a bent bit of electrical wire for the spout, and a shower cap cut from a plastic bag, stitched round the edge and gathered. The rubber duck is a scrapbooking brad, found by luck.
What we learned about materials
Keep the broken shells. Every egg that cracks becomes a test piece, and you want to try a marker or a glue on a curved shell before you try it on a finished one.
Markers beat paint. We got out every craft paint in the house, water and oil based, and used none of them. Markers dry on contact, which on a shell that has to be held is the only thing that matters.
Two glues. A white craft glue for trim like rick-rack, and a superglue for anything structural going onto the shell itself.
Adhesive cushions for everything else. Every figure is standing on one.