Easter Egg Cup

Traditional Egg Decorating in a Glamorous Glittery Setting

Easter Painted Egg and Glittery Egg Cup

This is a cute little project that won't take you very long to complete. It's a cinch for older kids, and even younger ones can help with the fun parts: collecting materials, applying the glitter and painting their own egg.

Crafters with strong painting skills will enjoy showing off their talents on this dainty springtime canvas.

Easter Egg Cup Materials

• 2 small cups from sugar-free powdered drink mix (2 quart mix)
• 1 large egg, blown out (or use a Styrofoam egg for small children)
• large sewing needle
• small piece of plastic straw
• glue gun
• school glue or other white glue
• assorted paint brushes
• acrylic paints
• glitter
• small Styrofoam or paper plate to use as your paint palette
• small tart tin or dish to sprinkle glitter into
• a jar for water
• a small stone to use as a weight
• plastic rose nail - (from a cake decorating kit: optional)
• Sticky Tack to hold the egg while painting - (optional)
• Acrylic paint sealer in matte finish - (optional)
• one round toothpick.

Blowing Out the Egg

1. Use a large needle to gently poke a hole in both ends of the egg. Wiggle the needle around inside the egg to help break up the membrane and yolk.

2. Place a small piece of plastic straw over the hole on the "pointy" end of the egg. Standing over the sink, blow on the straw until you've blown out the entire inside of the egg. (Tip: a room-temperature egg will be easier to blow out than a cold one.) This process involves a good pair of lungs and several minutes of your time. Be gentle: empty eggshells are easy to break! Once finished, set aside.

Assembling the Egg Cup

1. Use glue gun to glue a small stone in the bottom cup. This will help weight the cup and keep it from tipping over when finished. When the glue is dry, tip over and use glue gun to glue the second, empty cup back-to-back with the stone-filled cup.

2. After gluing the two cups together, use white glue and a brush to spread glue all over the outside of the two cups. Place these in a small tart tin or other container to help prevent the glitter from escaping onto the floor, your clothes, the dog: the usual places glitter likes to go. Shake glitter (any color will do or try mixing colors) onto the cups to cover. Young children love this part!

Preparing to Paint Your Egg

1. Now, get your palette ready for egg-painting. Feel free to add colors as you go along, but remember you'll only need a little bit of paint for each color. You can use my idea or paint anything that tickles your fancy. I used the rose nail and Sticky Tack to hold the egg in place while painting.

If you're pretty dexterous, you might be able to hold the egg in one hand while painting with the other, but remember how delicate the egg shell is. Small hands are likely to crush it if held too tightly, and even dropping it on the table top could crack it. Carefully work the end of the rose nail into the hole on the fat end of the egg. This will make the hole a little bigger, but it will be inside the egg cup and no one will see it.

Paint and Protect Your Egg

1. Once the egg is secure, use a mixture of green and yellow to make crisscross marks for grass about a third of the way up the egg. (The area below will be hidden by the cup).

2. Mix yellow with white paint to create a pastel yellow for the body of the chick. Paint an oval for the body with a little triangular tail. Paint a circle for the chick's head.

3. Use green paint to paint the stem and leaves for a flower.

4. Mix red and white paint for the flower: a tulip is a simple one to paint. The bottom is rounded, and there are three petals. Use variations of red/pink/white to add dimension to the flower. Once paint is dry, you can always go back and paint over, add details, etc.

5. Add details: Use yellow-orange to outline the chick, and add its beak and wing.

Use a round toothpick to make the eye:use one end to apply black paint, then the other dipped in white paint to create a highlight. Use a green/yellow paint combo to bring the grass up around the chick.

6. When the egg is completely dry and you're happy with the results, you can spray with a thin coat of clear acrylic spray finish to add extra durability to the paint. Go thin - you can always spray more coats later on. A few thin coats of acrylic spray may also help keep the glitter from shedding.

7. Here's the last step: to secure the egg to the egg cup, you can hot-glue the egg in place. That way, little hands won’t be tempted to carry their egg around. In fact, if you're doing this project with very small children, you might want to let them paint a Styrofoam egg instead of a real one. Congratulations: you're done!

Easter Cup Craft by Bonnie Arena

Bonnie crafts incessantly, adores Red Zinger tea, and contributes regularly to FavorIdeas, a spot to find the perfect party favor or baby shower favor for your next home entertaining event.