Sunday, April 8, 2012

Easter Egg Decorating, a Unique Way...

We decorate Easter eggs every year, but this year I think they came out the best.  We tried a different method using nail polish, and it turned out amazing.  Check it out!
Believe it or not this is was actually so simple!
  1.   We started with a bowl of water, nail polishes and hmmm… well that was it!GEDC1699
  2. You take the nail polish and drip it onto the surface of the water.  Keep adding color until you get the desired effect that you like.GEDC1700
  3. Take your egg and dunk it onto the floating nail polish and it will wrap around your egg as you push the egg deeper into the water.  GEDC1701
  4. Pull the egg out and allow to dry.GEDC1702
We loved this technique even though it was very messy and a bit stinky.  It was fun to try something new, and the results are beautiful. 
I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday!  Take care!

Easter Egg Soap

Here at Alice’s Niche we had a little fun with the kids yesterday.  We made wonderful Easter Eggs Melt and Pour Soaps for the family.  I think it came out wonderful!
For our soap making I envisioned striped Easter egg soaps, it was a longer process than I really bargained for, and I have yet to master the pretty aspect of soaping.  But we did fine for newbies. 
1.  I started by making a soap mold using a box that I filled in the center seem with to allow for a flattened bottom.  I then taped it together and cut down the side of the box to make a tray.
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2.  I then wrapped the box with freezer paper to allow for a leak proof seal.
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3.  Then I got my colorant out and chose which ones I would use.   I use this ELF pallet only for coloring crafts. 
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4.  Using a tooth pick I took a bit of the eye shadow out and ground them up with my mortar and pestles(for this project I chose 3 colors, pink, orange and a bluish green).  I wrapped them in plastic wrap so I wouldn’t lose most of the color onto their rough surfaces.
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I just love using the eye shadows for colorant, because you can mix your own colors so easily if you cannot find the one you like.  Here I chose to add a bit more yellow to the somewhat orange color I already had.
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5.  I then cut my white Melt and Pour into chunks and placed them into a heat safe container. 
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6.  I then melted it in the microwave for about 50 seconds (depending on your microwave this might be different for you).
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6.  I then mixed in one of the colors and poured it into the mold.  After the soap had hardened I popped it out and repeated with the next color until I had all 3 colors made into flat soap sheets.  I then began to cut sheet using a cookie cutter that was in the shape of and Easter egg.  I then bagged up the scraps of leftover soap to use in a project at a later time.
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7.  I repeated this until all 3 colors were cut into egg shapes and the scraps were all picked up.  I then stacked the egg shapes into pile of 1 orange, 1 bluish green, and 1 pink.
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8.  I then cut the stack into 3 equal parts, creating the “stripes” that I was envisioning. 
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9.  I then chunked up a very small amount of clear melt and pour soap and place in a heat safe container.
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10.  I then melted the soap in the microwave for about 40 seconds, and added fragrance to it.
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11.  I then poured the melted clear melt and pour into the cookie cutter about 1/3 of the way up, while holding it on a sheet of freezer paper. 
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12.  After the soap had set up I was able to add 3 of the chunks of soap that were of different colors into the the cookie cutter to create the striped egg, then I pour clear melt and pour to fill the cookie cutter to the top. 
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13.  In order to make this process a bit faster I began doing the same process but in a soap mold instead.  (Whew!  I didn’t think I could hold onto that cookie cutter forever!)
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14.  And here is the final results. 
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