Spring Tree (3 of 4)

Here's another blown egg project that turned out pretty cute:  Spring Flower Baskets

The materials I used were

colored eggshells 'cup-shaped'

leftover deconstructed spring 'silk' flowers and soft reindeer moss

raffia + my rope-making tool from quilting days

You can make rope from anything--embroidery floss, pearl cotton, raffia, ribbon . . . sky's the limit.  The half-shells that I used were too petite to use heavy rope, so I found some strands of raffia and used the rope maker to twist up some petite rope to match.  Knotted the lengths I needed before cutting, and then hot glued them in place.

See the rope handle--twisted raffia, knotted, cut, and glued in place

My friend Rita gave me the coolest tie-dyed eggs several years ago, and I'm fascinated with the way they look and the process used to make them.

These are blown eggs that have been died by a transfer process.  I'm not sure about the actual process, but the patterns come from old silk ties that were wrapped around the eggs.  Pretty cool!

This is my favorite one--the color and pattern are so pretty.

They've been sitting in a bowl every year, but this year, I decided to use my trusty Dremmel to install a hanger so they could grace the Spring Tree.  I found shank buttons from Mama's button box and lengths of leftover ribbon. With a little fear and caution, I very carefully drilled out and enlarged one of the holes already in each egg.  A dab of hot glue and each ribbon loop was secured with a shank button to finish.

Now there were new treasures to hang on the tree!

The transfered patterns of each silk tie are fascinating to me

One day a couple of years ago, my friend Jo introduced me to a great shop in the Houston Heights.  I purchased some friendship bracelets to use as napkin rings for a table I would be decorating/hosting at our Women's Ministry's Spring Tea.  As usual, the decorating plan evolved right out of the realm of the friendship bracelets, but I saved them for some unknown special use.

And the Spring Tree was the perfect place to display them.  I used some blown dyed eggs from the early 90's, enlarged one of the holes with the Dremmel (can I repeat that power tools rock?!!!), and hot-glued the looped friendship bracelet there to make a hanger.



Don't you love the delicate flower and leaf beads on these colorful woven friendship bracelet

egg hangers?!

They turned out so nice.

The pastel egg is the background--

the hanger is the star.

What's Spring without nesting birds?

Another friend from Chappell Hill (Texas, near Brenham) where we used to live gifted me a shoebox with half a dozen beautiful bird's nests harvested from her yard.  I found a perfect little cardinal's nest.  Don't you love seeing all the materials they used to make it?  Cardinals make tight little neat bowls for their babies.

    I rummaged through Mama's button box once again and found the perfect button 'eggs.'

  Three pearl 'eggs' in the nest, and one on the side.

 

 

The nest fits nicely in the crook of the Spring Tree.



nest is on the left in a crook of the Spring Tree





you can see the nest with butterfly garland fluttering above



So, here are some pix of the finished Spring Tree.  Happy Spring!

 


hand painted ceramic eggs from the BlueBird Circle Houston share the base of the tree with reindeer moss and silk flowers