DLTK's Holiday Crafts for Kids
Paper Maché Easter Egg
My three year old made this one, so you'll have to excuse the fact that it looks a bit
like an egg with Chicken Pox. Older children can, of course, add more easter egg-ish
designs to it.
If you make it extra big you can use it as a pinata!
This egg is hollow inside. You could put all sorts of goodies in and give it as a
gift to a friend.
Materials:
balloon
newspaper
ONE OF: white glue, mod podge OR paper mache paste (1 part
flour to 4 parts water... boil about 3 minutes stirring constantly, add 2 ice cubes and
let cool) -- See our "How
to Mache" section
scissors
poster or tempra paint
paintbrush
glitter or sparkle glue
Instructions:
Prepare your paper mache paste right away so it has time to cool (if using the boil
method). I like boiled paste as it's smoother and takes a lot less flour (the REDUCE
part of the three R's!).
Blow up a balloon. You should use one that's blown up all the way to get a good
egg shape, but we always end up playing with ours until they're somewhat deflated which
makes the egg a bit rounder than it likely should be.
Tear strips of newspaper about 1 " wide and as long as you want.
Dip in the paper mache paste, but then remove excess paste (I run it through my fingers
to do this)
Cover the balloon in no more than 4 layers of paper mache (I always tell the kids no
more than 2 as they always put on too much *grin*). If you put on more than 4 it
will likely mold before it dries.
If you want to fill your egg with something, leave a space where the tied end is.
Scrunch newspaper up and line a bowl with it. Set the egg in that to dry.
Let dry COMPLETELY. It goes faster in a warm breezy place. If it's a nice
day, just stick it outside (just don't forget it if it starts to rain). It takes a
day or so to dry.
Put whatever goodies you want into your egg. Put them in a plastic baggie first so
that they don't get any paper mache goop on them.
Apply a second layer of mache. This time covering the opening. The more
layers you add, the sturdier it will be. We applied a second layer, but we only did
two layers, not 4 this time.
OPTIONAL: we always use scrap white computer paper or toilet paper (don't laugh)
for the final layer of all of our paper mache projects.
It takes less paint to cover.
I find newspaper needs two coats of paint, whereas the white paper only needs
one.
Toilet paper gives a rough texture which is nice for some animals.
We used computer paper for our egg.
Paint the whole thing a base color (we used pink and mixed the red and white together
ourselves) Kaitlyn LOVES mixing her own paint.
Use paint or markers to add easter egg decorations like stripes, dots or flowers.
We used a carrot cut in half to stamp on our purple dots and then circled them with
sparkle glue.
