Easter Egg Cascarones

Basic Materials*
blown eggs
acrylic craft paint & brushes
pin or small nail
confetti
tissue paper
pipe cleaners
glue gun & glue sticks
craft glue

* Other materials required for each egg are mentioned throughout the instructions below, but you can also improvise, using whatever you have handy.

Begin with clean, dry eggs. Pierce the top (smaller) end of the egg with a pin or nail, and make a slightly larger hole in the bottom of the egg. Blow the egg out (you can use a kitchen baster or an egg blower) and wash and dry the egg again. Once the shell is completely dry inside and out, use a paper cone or funnel in the larger hole to fill the eggs with a spoonful of confetti. Patch the hole with a small piece of tissue paper. (If you don't plan to crack your eggs, you can use paper mache, ceramic or plastic eggs and decorate them like these.) Paint the eggs the color you chose, and then follow these instructions.

1. Make four little legs out of pipe cleaners and bend the ends back about 1/4-inch to create 'feet' (hooves). Glue them to the underside of the pink egg with hot glue.

2. Cut two pointy ears out of tissue paper and glue them onto the pig's head. A small pink button (with two holes ) makes a perfect snout, and you can draw or paint eyes and a mouth.

3. Curl a pipe cleaner around a pencil or your pinky finger to make a coiled pig's tail. Glue it in place with hot glue.

1. Use hot glue to attach a few rows of sequins all around the egg, or only on the top and bottom.

2. Cut two side fins and a rear fin out of green flexible foam, felt or paper, and glue them in place with hot glue.

3. Draw a big pair of fishy lips with red dimensional paint. We used two little dollops of hot glue topped with a dot of black paint to make eyes, or use ready-made wiggle eyes.

1. Cut the bunny's feet, arms and ears out of flexible foam sheets:
- two big tear-shaped 'feet'
- one 5- to 6-inch-long and 3/4-inch-wide strip with ends cut like mittens for his arms and paws
- two long narrow ovals for ears, cut flat on one end to glue upright on the egg

2. Blush the insides of the bunny's ears, paws, and the bottoms of his feet with blush make-up and a cotton swab. Rub a cotton ball in the blush and then glue it to the bunny's backside for a fluffy tail.

3. Cut a small rectangle of the flexible foam and then snip a small "V" out of one narrow end. Glue this to the bunny's face for two big teeth. Pull a cotton ball in half and roll those two into smaller round balls, or use two small white pom-pom balls for the bunny's nose. Glue them side-by-side onto the bunny's face, just above the teeth. Use pink yarn, a pink pom-pom ball, or a small cotton ball tinted pink with blush for the rest of the bunny's nose. Glue it next to the two white cotton balls.

4. The bunny's eyes were made the same way the fish eyes were made.

5. If your bunny won't stand up on his own, glue a penny under him (centered, half on each foot) to give him a more substantial, flat base.

1. The egg is the butterfly's body. Lay it on a piece of paper and draw wings around it. Cut this out and use it as a template to cut out your tissue paper wings.

2. Glue the wings to the back of the egg, making the small end of the egg the top. Then decorate the wings and egg with beads, confetti, sequins, or paper punches.

3. Cut two pieces of pipe cleaner about 4 inches long and curl the ends around a pencil. Put a dab of glue on the straight ends and glue them in place, tucking them between the egg and the wings for support.

1. Cut two large leaves out of green flexible foam, felt or paper. Glue the two leaves together at one end. This will be the base.

2. Glue a few petals on top of the leaves, and then glue the egg on top of them. Then fill in any gaps with more petals, overlapping some. Make some stand up straight and out at an angle. Use hot glue as 'cement' to achieve this effect: glue a petal in place and before it sets, lift it slightly and squeeze a little hot glue under it. Hold the petal up a few seconds until the glue hardens--then it will support the petal from underneath.

Note: This egg can be modified into another flower using different colors and different petal shapes. Use flat petals only, with rounded tips, to make a daisy, or yellow rounded petals and a brown egg for a sunflower or black-eyed Susan. Petals can be tissue paper, felt, other papers or flexible foam, and any color goes. The sky's the limit!

1. Use black paint or a black marker to draw two wings on the ladybug's back. Then draw or paint her spots and face. Black felt would also make good spots.

2. Use red or black pipe cleaners for six little legs (like the pig's legs) and two curly antennae (like the butterfly's antennae). Glue these in place with a glue gun.

1. Our egg and yarn are pink, but yours can be white or whatever color you like. You can use a white egg and pink yarn, or a pink egg and white yarn, a black egg with white yarn...use your imagination!

2. Coat sections of the egg with glue and wrap it with yarn. Leave the smaller end of the egg uncovered if you like, and let that part be the lamb's face.

3. Make four legs out of pipe cleaners and glue them in place with a glue gun.

4. Glue on a button or paint on a nose, and make eyes with paint or use wiggle eyes. Cut two long oval ears out of flexible foam, paper or felt and glue them in place with hot glue.

1. Cover an egg with thin aluminum foil. Either coat the egg with glue and attach foil strips or squares, or just wrap the egg in foil--in this case, you don't need to use glue because the foil will form to the egg and hold itself in place. Using glue and smaller foil pieces will create a smoother egg that looks more like glass.

2. Use dimensional shiny black paint to draw segments all over the egg. Draw random shapes like ours, or draw rows, circles, Easter shapes, etc. Allow the paint to dry thoroughly.

3. Using regular acrylic paint thinned slightly with water, paint the sections. We used two coats of paint and touched up some areas where the paint was too thin to adhere to the foil, but if you like some of the foil showing through, just use one coat.

1. Cut strips of paper (or fabric) about 2 inches wide and long enough to wrap around the egg two or three times. You could also use lace. Using more than one layer will make a fuller, nicer-looking skirt.

2. Cut the length of one side using decorative scissors for a nice edge. Along the other side, cut a 3/4-inch slit about every 1 inch. The resulting 'tabs' of paper will make it easier to glue the paper flatly to the rounded egg.

3. Run a line of glue around the egg about one-third from the smaller end. (That small exposed end will be the angel's head.) Glue the tabbed edge of the paper around the egg, overlapping as needed. Try to end up with the decorative end slightly longer than the base of the egg when upright. This will create the angel's 'robe,' so it needs to be long enough to cover the bottom of the egg. If it's too long, trim it again with the decorative scissors.

4. Glue a piece of ribbon or rickrack around the top of the angel's 'robe' to hide the glued edges.

5. Make the angel's hair out of yarn, tissue paper, or ready-made doll hair, and glue in place. Draw a sweet face with a fine black marker, and dab on a little pink paint or blush for rosy cheeks.

6. Glue wings onto the back of the robe with hot glue. We used ready-made wings, but you can make your own out of feathers, tissue paper, lace or fabric.

7. Use a circle of gold wire or gold cord to make a halo. Glue it to the head of a regular pin, and stick the pin into the glue where the wings are attached.

8. If you want the angel to be able to stand upright, glue on a base of paper, pennies, or flexible foam.