Tissue Paper Easter Eggs

Today in co-op art we made tissue paper Easter eggs. This is a simple, cheap, nice looking project, with just the right amount of messiness.

Daughters M and L blew out eggs for several weeks, until we had 60 for our two classes. I wanted everyone to be able to do two. We used what we could, but the cats ate a lot of them. (We live on a farm with 6 outside cats.) The girls also did another 30 for a friend's church project on Palm Sunday. (Note on egg blowing: It is well worth buying the egg blowing kit from Ukrainiangiftshop.com. There is a little drill and an egg syringe that works wonderfully for blowing and rinsing out eggs. No more tired cheeks.)

Here is the process:

Each student got a paper plate, a square of waxed paper, assorted colored squares of tissue paper and a little Modge Podge in their plates. Modge Podge comes in matte, shiny or glitter. Check to see that you're buying the one you wanted. We also had scissors and wet cloths avaliable on each table.

A small amount of glue is rubbed on the egg with a finger and the paper is glued down in the desired shape or design. More glue, more shapes are added until the egg is covered, or the design is finished. Overlapping the paper gives a great effect. The dots are easy to make, but you want to layer or fold the paper and cut many dots at one time and then separate them. Much faster and more efficient.

After the egg is finished, go over it again with more Modge Podge to smooth and cover the whole egg. Set it to dry on the waxed paper. Since we were sending these home still somewhat wet, I brought plastic cups and each child layered an egg, waxed paper and another egg into the cup to transport. Names on the paper plate and the cup help with ID while eggs are drying or traveling.

The eggs in the carton on the first picture are some that I brought along as examples. My kids and I made them in past years.