Make your own designer eggs!

So, some of you may know I have a slight {heh} bird obsession. I love bird figurines, prints, nests and eggs. I wanted to decorate with some eggs and the only place I found them was at Pottery Barn. No offense, PB, I love you dearly but you do not always agree with my budget. And I just could not justify buying 8 eggs with brown speckles for $16. I mean, really, two bucks per egg? C'mon people, we can do better than that! So I did :) I made 16 eggs for under $5...ssaaawweeeettt!!!

I didn't do a step-by-step tutorial because I don't have two extra arms to take the pictures of me in the act of doing these things, so I'll just kind of explain along the way. First, gather all supplies: eggs, paintbrushes, pins, paint, newspaper, big empty bowl {for egg insides}, a small bowl with water and a syringe or one of those baby snot sucker things {classy, I know}. 

Ready to go. Now, I punched a hole in one end of the eggs with my pin. It had to be slowly chipped away, but doing it that way I found kept the shell from cracking and stayed smooth. I made it large enough so that the syringe fit just inside the egg then started drawing out the yolk and whites and put them in the large bowl. If it starts getting difficult or to wash it out a the end I squirted some water in the egg, plugged the hole and shook it a little then drew the rest of it out.

Then sit the eggs with the open end pointing down {I just put them back in the egg crates} so any extra can drain out. 

Next comes the fun part!! Pick your paint!

I had pictures of beautiful robin's egg blue eggs and some brown speckled ones like quail eggs {and like the overpriced ones at Pottery Barn....just sayin}. I just experimented here and this is the part where you need to either 1. not care if you get paint all over your hands and nails or 2. wear gloves. 

For the blue eggs I started by painting two with a paintbrush and it was streaky, so I went with the technique of rolling and dunking the eggs in the paint. That was smoother, thicker and prettier but it was SO messy, you had to hold it forever so most of the excess would run off back into the paint cup and then they took forever to dry! I can be a little impatient which is why I tried dunking the eggs, but as much as I get impatient sometimes, my perfectionism will always override it. So, I just did two coats for those first two streaky eggs and I think if I did them all that way then it would be less time than the dunking method. Just a handy tip I found out.

See the two streaky ones and then the pretty glossy ones? Beauty can be deceiving people.

Now for the speckled eggs. Easy, I just loaded the brush with the brown paint and then flicked my finger across it so it would splatter. Make sure you choose a stiffer brush so that there's a lot of tension for good paint-flinging....yes, that is an official term.

Here's all my pretty little eggs drying {before the second coat for the streaky ones, mind you}. A little speckling landed on my blue ones but I've learned to not sweat the small stuff. Besides, bird eggs are never perfect anyways, I think it adds character.

The best part yet....I added them to my spring time displays in all my apothecary jars, hurricanes and cloches around the house!! Yippee!!!

 The top of my bookshelf kind of evolved into a little birdie vignette by accident. The vase did hold a daisy but I replaced it with peacock feathers. The green bird was a gift from the ever generous, second mom, Carol. Then I added the egg in the cloche when I finished this project and realized what I had done...and was super stoked about it!

My little apothecary jars already had the moss, twigs and birds {99 cent candles at Michael's} and then I added my little eggs to complete the look on our entertainment center.

 I know the picture below is kind of blurry but I just included it so you could see the placement of everything from every angle. This is important because we don't view our home just from one spot, we see it from every angle as we move and live in it and that is something to remember when we decorate.

I know, we are very uncool with our old TV set. But I'll tell you what's cooler than a flat screen....debt free!

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the little tour around my home to see my spring decorations on the cheap! This is something fun you can do with your kids outside one afternoon, making memories and house decorations at the same time! 

**The day after I made these I saw an official egg-decorating dude on TV and he used a wooden skewer to punch straight through the egg from top through the bottom and slid it up and down to push the yolk out but the holes were really obvious and I saw some cracking on the video. I haven't tried this technique yet, but if I do I'll let you know what I think.**

Did any of you decorate for spring with eggs or birds?