beyond the aisle: Spring Craft: Decoupage Easter Egg Wreath

There are a few craft ideas I always come back to. Making wreaths is one of my favorite crafty activities, and book pages are one of my favorite materials to use in creative projects. Last Easter, I decoupaged some plastic Easter eggs from the dollar store with pages from a Shakespeare book I picked up at Goodwill. This year, I got the idea to jazz up those book page eggs with some glitter and turn them into a wreath!

First, let's make some decoupage eggs. Craft stores sell papier-mâché eggs, which I am sure would make this project a bit more manageable, but you can't beat 24 eggs for a dollar. Our local Dollar Tree had both regular sized and mini eggs, so I picked up a package of each. You'll also need gloss Mod Podge, a sponge brush, and a book or other interesting paper (scrapbooking paper, a map, etc.) you don't mind ripping up.

Use your sponge brush to coat the surface of the egg with Mod Podge and start applying your paper scraps. It's helpful to cover the egg's "seam" first so that it doesn't pop apart while you're working.

Keep going...

until your egg is covered. If the egg's color shows through, add more paper. Your hands will get disgusting with Mod Podge, but what do you care? You're a crafter, baby.

If you want your eggs to sparkle, add glitter while the Mod Podge is still sticky. I used Martha Stewart Crystal Coarse Glitter.

The finished eggs look great displayed in a bed of recycled paper Easter grass, but I wasn't finished...

Now it's wreath time! I used a 12 inch grapevine wreath and a dogwood garland, both from A.C. Moore, along with my trusty glue gun. The dogwood garland caught my eye because they are our state flower in Virginia, one of my personal favorites, and perfect for Easter because they symbolize the Resurrection.

I cut the garland into smaller pieces to make it more manageable, hot-glued one end to the back of my wreath, and twisted it around, then used the glue gun to attach eggs in the gaps. I clustered large and small eggs together and tried to keep them from being too symmetrical. Presto, Easter wreath!