Saturday, April 10, 2004
Easter crafts
Back at Christmas I shared some of the lovely craft projects I've found in Alcoa's Book of Decorations, a childhood fave. And I warned... er... told you that I'd be sharing more for future holidays. Well, Easter is upon us, and so, as promised, is Foil Craft.
Most of Alcoa's Easter selection is pretty lame: bunnies made of foil just look sad and ridiculous. However, there is one craft that Alcoa puts forth for Easter that I'm quite puzzled by: egg dolls. I've never heard of egg dolls, but according to the book, I'll "find fun and excitement in this new way to decorate eggs for Easter."
It's simple, really; all you need is a bowl of hard-cooked eggs, construction paper or plastic tape, aluminum foil, and scraps of gift-wrap paper, fabric, and ribbon. You make the dolls' bodies out of the cardboard tubes that you get from a roll of paper towels or--surprise!--foil.
According to the instructions, the "egg doll friends" are, from left to right: a tipsy gentleman with a top hat; The Baby; a robust young lady with braids; and a reclining rabbit (you could probably have guessed that one). The tall fellow in the center is apparently the traditional Easter Clown. His head is (just in case you couldn't couldn't tell) an egg. His body is the cardboard tube from the foil, but covered in foil. So you take the foil off the tube... and wrap it around the tube. Then you push it into a styrofoam disc and shape arms, with hands, out of foil.
[At this point in the instructions, confusingly, we're told that "If you wish to keep any egg doll long, it is best to blow out its contents." Only an experienced crafter could infer that this means the contents of the egg, not the tube or something, let alone know how to use a needle and enough lung power to make a whale hyperventilate to blow all the nasty egg bits out of a raw egg, not the hard-cooked ones that are called for. I've never tried it, but I imagine it's pretty much impossible to blow out the contents of a hard-cooked egg through a needle hole.]
The rest of the clown's costume is--surprise again!--foil, pleated, pinched, folded, and rolled into various shapes. If you go to the grocery store right now and pick up some foil and eggs, you could have a whole party of egg doll friends standing there to welcome your kids tomorrow morning when they wake up at the crack of dawn and race to the Easter Tree to see what the Easter Clown left for them. Hop to it, crafters, time's a-wastin.
Back at Christmas I shared some of the lovely craft projects I've found in Alcoa's Book of Decorations, a childhood fave. And I warned... er... told you that I'd be sharing more for future holidays. Well, Easter is upon us, and so, as promised, is Foil Craft.
Most of Alcoa's Easter selection is pretty lame: bunnies made of foil just look sad and ridiculous. However, there is one craft that Alcoa puts forth for Easter that I'm quite puzzled by: egg dolls. I've never heard of egg dolls, but according to the book, I'll "find fun and excitement in this new way to decorate eggs for Easter."It's simple, really; all you need is a bowl of hard-cooked eggs, construction paper or plastic tape, aluminum foil, and scraps of gift-wrap paper, fabric, and ribbon. You make the dolls' bodies out of the cardboard tubes that you get from a roll of paper towels or--surprise!--foil.
According to the instructions, the "egg doll friends" are, from left to right: a tipsy gentleman with a top hat; The Baby; a robust young lady with braids; and a reclining rabbit (you could probably have guessed that one). The tall fellow in the center is apparently the traditional Easter Clown. His head is (just in case you couldn't couldn't tell) an egg. His body is the cardboard tube from the foil, but covered in foil. So you take the foil off the tube... and wrap it around the tube. Then you push it into a styrofoam disc and shape arms, with hands, out of foil.
[At this point in the instructions, confusingly, we're told that "If you wish to keep any egg doll long, it is best to blow out its contents." Only an experienced crafter could infer that this means the contents of the egg, not the tube or something, let alone know how to use a needle and enough lung power to make a whale hyperventilate to blow all the nasty egg bits out of a raw egg, not the hard-cooked ones that are called for. I've never tried it, but I imagine it's pretty much impossible to blow out the contents of a hard-cooked egg through a needle hole.]
The rest of the clown's costume is--surprise again!--foil, pleated, pinched, folded, and rolled into various shapes. If you go to the grocery store right now and pick up some foil and eggs, you could have a whole party of egg doll friends standing there to welcome your kids tomorrow morning when they wake up at the crack of dawn and race to the Easter Tree to see what the Easter Clown left for them. Hop to it, crafters, time's a-wastin.
permalink posted by The Vintage Reader @ 9:50 AM 
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