Egg TreeCreatively Sam's

You’ve got to love the after holiday sales. Items are marked down 50% to 90% off. Many of the items are marked down because they did sell. Why? Because sometimes, they’re down right ugly. But as a crafter, you see things in another light. Nothing is ever as it is meant to be. So was the case for this ugly Easter decoration. But I saw more.

The little egg tree was so ugly, that I knew I had to help it. Instead of an ugly Easter decoration, with tacky paper covered Curly-Q’s, I saw something pretty… and maybe a little Shabby Chic.

The first thing that I did was remove those tacky Curly-Q’s. All it took was a little wiggling back & forth and a twist or two, and it came right out.

Then I used some sand paper to roughen up the shiny surface. I knew what color I wanted it, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. so I mixed my own. I used Ocean Reef Blue, Laguna, Aquamarine & White acrylic paint. I kept mixing until I got the right shade. As you can see, I made a lot of it. It turned out to be a lot like Tiffany Blue.

Once I got the right shade mixed, I painted the egg. It took 3 coats to completely cover it.

Then I set it aside to dry completely. While it was drying, I added some Textile medium to the paint to make some fabric paint.

By making my own fabric paint, I knew it would match the egg. Once the medium was mixed thoroughly with the paint, I painted some lace.

And because I’m me, while the paint was still wet, I added some glitter to it. (ahem…)

Once the lace had dried, I used a needle & thread to add a running stitch to it so that I could gather the lace. I added the gathered lace around the bottom of the egg, and knotted the thread several times. I saved the excess lace for later.

I set it aside & got started on making the tree portion of the Egg Tree. I used some turquoise wire that I had on hand, but you could use any wire you have. I don’t remember the gauge, but I just made sure that 10 pieces together would fit into the hole at the top. I cut 10 pieces of the wire, 8″ long.

Then I twisted the wires together 4″ up to make the trunk of the tree. Just don’t twist the wires too tightly, or they will break. (Ask me how I know this.)

Then I spread out the wires to form the branches of the tree. At different levels, I took 2 wires & twisted them a little to form a branch. Once the branches were made, I used a wooden skewer to wrap the wires around to make the curls in the wire.

Since I knew that I was going to use this as an earring tree, it had to have something at the ends to keep the earrings from sliding off. What better than pearls? Although I could have used any bead, I liked the way the pearls looked with the turquoise. I slid the pearls onto each branch end, and then made a loop at the end of the wire. I bent the loop flat and slid the pearl down to rest on the the loop.

I set it aside & painted the egg with a coat of glossy Mod Podge. I also gave the lace a coat of the Mod Podge to seal the glitter onto the lace.

Then I used some hot glue to glue the tree into the egg. To cover the opening where the trunk was glued, I add 4 pieces of lace around the trunk with Mod Podge.