Easter Egg Wreath

{My computer went to the great beyond this week (jerk), so my kind and patient husband, who also happens to know a ton about computers, copied all my important stuff (like insanely vital fonts that I nearly had a panic attack over losing .... oh yeah, and pictures of the kids ....) on to his Mac so that I could continue to blog.  This will likely be the most disjointed blog post ever, as I try to navigate my way through editing photos, finding photos, and what not on a Mac.  I hate learning new things.}

Spring is in the air!  In such a major way where we live.  In fact, last week I was questioning if we skipped spring all together and went straight to summer.  And just to show you how wonderfully spring it is, look at Elliot's tree!

Aren't it's blooms amazing?

I love spring.

Anyway, since I saw this idea way back in like January, I wanted to use it to make an Easter egg wreath.  There are tons of people out there trying their hand at this, but my absolute favorite is found here.  More recently, Alissa, at Crafty Endeavor did this post about making an Easter Egg Garland.  Alissa is smart, and she made this project about a million times easier for me.

So first, you need a lot of embroidery floss in lovely pastel Eastery colors.  I went with 20.  That seemed like the perfect number for a wreath . . . right?

Next, you need to make your starchy bath.  I bought Sta-Flo liquid starch.  It would have been really helpful to take a picture of the bottle so that you know what you're looking for . . . sigh.  According to Alissa, you need 1/2 a cup of flour and 1 cup Sta-Flo.  This is one of Alissa's helpful tips: don't just throw the embroidery floss in, wrap it in nicely in loops, or it will become really knotty.  I followed her method, and it worked like a charm.

Now, take a water balloon.  (I did mention to buy some water balloons, right?)  First, before we start man handling the water balloon, let me say this:  This was the hardest part of the project!!  No, not wrapping the starchy liquidy goopy floss around the balloon .... but actually blowing up the miniature annoying little thing!  You'd think that I'm a two pack a day smoker!  (I'm not.)  For the life of me, I could not do it.  I even attempted to blow them up with an electric pump that we use to fill an air mattress, and even that didn't work!!  You should have seen the look on Gavin's face.  He actually offered to blow them up for me, because he was certain I was doing something wrong.  Something that he, a four year old, would surely be able to figure out.  I must say that I'm more than a little ashamed with the small joy I took in seeing that he couldn't blow them up either.  Okay.  I eventually got them blown up, but I could only blow up about three at a time.  You'd think with all the talking I do, I'd have better lung capacity.

Blow up some water balloons.  Get ones that cost more than 50 cents.

Now, as you are wrapping the embroidery floss around the balloon, use your fingers to pull off the excess liquid.  Make it go through two tightly pinched fingers before it makes its way on to the balloon.  This is another good tip from Alissa.  It shouldn't be a goopy mess when you are done, or it will be harder to keep it in that nice lovely egg shape in the end.

It's good to know that one skein will cover one water balloon.  Thanks Alissa!  I set mine on wax paper to dry, and I let them go over night, turning them over after several hours so the other side could dry.

Speaking of wax paper, I got goop everywhere.  So I would recommend doing the stringing over wax paper too.

When I had all twenty done, I started popping balloons.  I must say, there was something very satisfying about the popping part of this project.  This is where it's very important that the embroidery floss is completely dry, and that you didn't put too much goop on.  I would also suggest pushing in on the balloon a little before you pop it so that it somewhat separates from the yarn.  Like Alissa, I had some little bits of starch left that I got off with a toothpick.

After I got all 20, I turned a bowl upside down, and lined up the eggs into the wreathy pattern that I wanted.  Then I just hot glued them all together.  I would take an egg or two out of the circle at a time, pop on some hot glue and then put it back in.  (Photos of this process would have been helpful . . . huh?)  When I was done, I added hot glue to each spot that the eggs touched.  Word to the wise (look away, Nathan), don't do this on carpet, unless you think that little dabs of hot glue would make a nice accessory to your living room floor.  Maybe newspaper?  Maybe.

Here is the wreath up close in all it's imperfect beauty.  You can kind of get what I mean about the hot glue.

And here it is hanging up.

And just because I can't get enough of her cute face, here is Quinn squealing in the delight of playing outside mid-March.

Your wreath shopping list:

20 skeins of embroidery floss (I ended up using 19) - they were $0.35 each at Michaels and I used a 20% off of everything coupon because I'm thrifty like that

Sta-Flo - about $2.50

Water Balloons - about $0.50 if you have good lung capacity

Other things you hopefully have:

Hot Glue Gun and Hot Glue

Wax Paper

Plastic Bowl

Flour

Ribbon for hanging

So if you're keeping track, I did it for under $10.  Not bad for a fancy looking wreath.