It’s right about now…when you think the worst of winter has passed, but its not quite spring either…that I find I have reached my fill of cold and wet. We have had a mild winter here in the Pacific NW but we did get an unusual dump of 10” of snow two weeks ago…which smothered the few crocuses poking up in the garden. I’ve been trying to get out in the yard to do a little clean-up but a fierce northern wind forces me back inside the house…I am definitely a fair weather gardener!

So if one is going to still be confined inside, why not create something to encourage spring-like visions…which immediately conjures up images of birds and eggs…

I thought I would share with you a project that I created a couple of years ago that uses the simplest of materials in an imaginative way.

My Plaster of Paris egg tutorial is one of several projects on my website tutorial page that I have compiled as a resource of creative ideas. Please feel free to pop over, browse through the other 11 tutorials and discover a project or two that may inspire you.

The first step in this project is creating the eggs, which involves pouring a mixture of Plaster of Paris into hollowed out eggshells and allowing them to set and harden before removing the outer shell. For the complete details on that process click here.

Once I had the hardened eggs, it was time to lightly sand and then embellish them.

Elmer’s Glue is my glue of choice…its long drying time ensures a smooth, flat dry with minimal bumps or creases. A few feathers, snippets of French book pages and a bit of patterned tissue paper was all it took to add a bit of flair to each egg. Once the glue was totally dry, I lightly waxed the outside of each egg with Johnson’s Paste Wax to seal the outer surface. For the complete details on the embellishment process click here.

A charming vignette was created by using my silverplated bud vases and candlesticks as egg stands with a tuft of excelsior shred to simulate a nest.

Playing around with new ideas, experimenting with different mediums, realizing that not everything may turn out as you would like…and sometimes discovering that there are pleasant surprises are all part of the creative process. I’m hoping that as weeks of stay at home (due to weather or COVID) linger on, you see this time as an opportunity to create with no boundaries, no restrictions, no rules….a complete antithesis of what the world is telling us right now.