Crepe Paper Easter Egg Garland

I’ve being working on a project using crepe paper and this was something that happened along the way. I suppose you could make the eggs with tissue paper but the crepe paper was so easy and when the edges over lap, they make a new color stripe!
It’s really beautiful to see the hanging eggs in the sun. They glow almost like stained glass.

Materials:
Contact paper
Crepe paper streamers
Scissors
Thin Sharpie marker
String
Needle





Cut two 4.5” strips of contact paper (the roll is 18”).
Peel the paper back off one strip and lay the film sticky side up on the table.

Add a length of crepe paper to the center of the sticky contact paper then add a 2nd length and over lap them slightly.

Add a 3rd length of crepe paper to the bottom.

Now, you could just cut your eggs out here- you don’t need to encase them in a second layer of contact paper but I did.

Remove the paper back off the 2nd strip and lay the film sticky side over the crepe paper.

Really press the 2 surfaces together.

Trace around an egg shape cut from card stock – mine measures 4" tall.

Remember to flip the egg template so there are different top and bottom colors.

First, lay the eggs out and arrange them in the order they will go on the string.

Then cut the string to about 6’ (or more/less if needed) and thread the needle through the top of each egg about .25" from the edge.

St Patrick's Day Ties

These ties were developed for a Valentines day project but I think they're great for St. Patrick's day (or the Fourth of July). You can make them regular sized or super size them. Here are the basic instructions with great thanks to my models below.

This is just a photo opp with our sweet dog Chester. 
He would never be left alone with the tie as he might try to chew it and that might make him very sick!

 

Materials:

Duct tape

Sparkly material

Elastic cord

Bow tie/Hair tie: 

Slightly overlap two 7” lengths of duct tape onto the back side of the sparkly material.

Trim them to make a 6.5” x 3” rectangle

Trim the .5” leftover strip to 1.5” long and wrap it around the middle of the rectangle.

Gather the rectangle together in the middle then secure it in place on the back with a small piece of duct tape.

Thread an 18” length of elastic through the back loop and knot the ends.

Tie:

Slightly overlap two 14” lengths of duct tape onto the back side of the sparkly material.

Trace around the template on the duct tape and cut the tie shape out.

Cut 18” length of elastic and knot the ends together to make a loop.

With the duct tape side up, fold the tie top over the elastic loop and secure in place on the back with a small piece of duct tape.

You can also make the ties over-sized!

St Patrick's Day Cucumber Pot's of Gold

I tested making little "pots of gold" for work awhile back –they're really easy and fun. A lot of my job as a developer is to test things like this to see if they're going to work, how hard they are to make or what options look and taste the best.

Slice a (washed) cucumber into 2” sections.

Use a melon scooper to take out the soft center then add hummus, a handle and some gold “coins”.

I tested making the tiny coins by punching disks from a yellow pepper with a straw, an apple corer and also tried them diced.

 Here are some of the options I tried:

 And here are some of different handles:  celery, carrot and a scallion (not so good). 

My favorite version has little legs but it's more complicated to make and it actually seeps a little cucumber juice after its sat for awhile. The celery handle is the easiest and looks the best.

I wonder what else you could use for the coins? Cheese? Some tiny crackers?

It’s that time of year again! Lucky March 17th is next week and we are so ready for spring! This year we wanted to make a small trap for tiny Leprechauns. So we modified a trap I made for work a longtime ago from an oatmeal container.  (The original image has disappeared from the website but it still exists everywhere on the internet).

Apparently, leprechauns are the shoe makers for fairie folk; they have huge egos, love gold (a lot) and are also very curious and mischievous. Hopefully this hat with a gold nugget on top and an inviting ladder will be enough to catch one.

For the first try- we used a paper coffee cup but the cup slant is hard to negotiate- a cylinder is much easier to cover with felt.

The second try-we used a shortened paper towel tube but the proportions seemed a little off.

Third times a charm- just a cylinder of paper covered in felt.

Materials:
Card stock cut to 4” by 7”
Green felt
Double sided tape
Rickrack, sequins, ribbon or a felt strip- an embellishment

Ladder & Footprints

Little sticks
Hot glue
Pencil
X-acto
Stamp pad
Tin foil
Yellow marker


Our ladder measures 6¹⁄₂" by 1¹⁄₂" and is made by gluing little sticks on the 2 sides about every ¹⁄₂".

Trim the felt into a 4” by 7’” rectangle, a 2¹⁄₄" diameter circle and a  3⁷⁄₈" diameter circle.

Roll the card stock into a cylinder shape and secure the edge closed with the double sided tape.

Add double sided tape to the paper cylinder then press the felt rectangle around the cylinder, trim off any excess.

Add the embellishment trim to the felt covered cylinder – we used double sided tape to attach the rickrack and the sequin chain on the back near the felt seam.

Trim top the felt circle so it fits perfectly on top of the cylinder.
Place the cylinder on the larger circle.

Cover a piece of tin foil with yellow marker then squish it up to make the “gold nugget.”

Carve a little shoe print into a pencil; eraser to make a tiny boot print (yeah- it's kind of wonky but it printed up fine).