Friday, April 3, 2009

Easter Craft, Day 3:

I love these easter egg wreaths... But you go to the stores and they're anywhere from $30-$50... Which I just can't bring myself to pay! So, I had to figure out a way to make one myself... For much cheaper!
The Supply list:
Cardboard, Plastic Easter Eggs (I used 42 regular sized)
Easter Grass
1 1/2 inch wide Ribbon
Wire or Pipe Cleaners for bow and hanger an the back.

The Tool List:

Hot Glue Gun
Scissors
A Pencil with it's eraser never used.

Let's get started!
We started with a base of cardboard. I just grabbed any box and cut out two circles. If your cardboard is super thick and sturdy, you can use one thickness if you wish. The outside of my circle is 12 inches and the inside measures 9 inches. This makes the wreath a little over 13 inches in diameter. If you need or want a larger wreath, then cut bigger circles....and you'll need more eggs.
I added some hot glue to one of my circles in a pretty decorative fashion. Ha! Who am I kidding? I just squirted it around the frame!
Okay. Now it's time to start hot gluing the eggs down. Look at the top right of the photo. This is where I started. I put a little glob of hot glue on the bottom of the green one and set it down on the cardboard with the fat end on the inside. Make sure you place the eggs horizontal on the board. Do not have them standing at attention or tilting upward. Next I placed the pink egg next to the green one and put one small dab of glue in between the two to connect them. You could probably see it if you click on the picture to enlarge it. Next I added the purple one and connected it to the pink and green one with more glue. To sum this up, you will have glue on the bottom of all the eggs to adhere it to the cardboard and anywhere it touches another egg, you'll need to put a little dab on it too. This will build a nice and sturdy wreath. As you can see with the first three eggs, the purple one nestles right in with the other two. As you work around the wreath, this is not the case with every egg. Look at the next two (yellow & blue). The blue can't quite nestle in between the yellow and pink. Not a problem. Just make sure that when you continue with your wreath, your outside eggs are facing out like a sunburst and your inside eggs are facing inward to a center point. Do not worry about the gaps where you can see the cardboard. We'll fix that later.
When you get to the end, you will probably not have enough to finish out the wreath. This is PERFECT! You will need that space to put a bow there. By the way, I picked up these eggs (well actually 50 of them) at the local thrift shop for $2.50! Okay, the next step is to put the top layer on the wreath. I used 10 eggs...2 of each color. All I did was place them in a random fashion. You can look at the first picture for the example. You can place them over the places where you have the biggest gaps and then fill in or whatever you like. You will need to hot glue these down everywhere they touch another egg.
Next, start with a little grass and using your pencil as a tool push some grass with the eraser into the gaps of your wreath. Start with the the gaps under the top layer of your eggs. Then you will need to put them between the outside rim of the bottom layer of eggs. In the space where the gap is, put a little bed of hot glue and let it cool a few second and then put some grass there to cover the cardboard.After you are done "grassing" your wreath, trim the fly-a-ways from the outside of your wreath to shape your wreath. Don't forget to trim the inside too!

Add the bow to your wreath in the space not covered by the eggs and add a pipe cleaner to the back to make a hanger for the wreath and you're done!