My Easter Egg Project

My kids absolutely love the easter egg hunt we have every year, and it's so gorgeous to watch their delight running around the garden hunting for them. Easter has crept up on me this year as it's so early, it's only three weeks away! So I got to thinking about the whole easter egg hunt thing we do last night.

With three kids we end up using several packets of cheap chocolate eggs each year, and I have several problems with that:
a) the amount of (plastic and foil) packaging that is involved with all those eggs;
b) we end up with a massive basket of eggs I have to hide and ration out over the coming week to avoid the girls exploding from the over-consumption of chocolate (they also receive a ton of eggs and bunnies etc from relatives);
c) we are actively trying to avoid non Fair-Trade chocolate, as I don't like to support - however indirectly - the child slave trade in cocoa bean production that exists in many African countries (for more information, check these posts on Eilleen's blog for some informative links and videos); and
d) I have a devil of a time keeping the two dogs away from the eggs prior to the Hunt (and of course chocolate is toxic to dogs!).

So! I wondered if it was possible to make some non-chocolate "eggs" that we can reuse each year, after all it's really the "thrill of the chase" that the kids love, and the relatives will no-doubt provide stacks of chocolate anyway. After much searching on the internet for ideas, I discounted the idea of buying and decorating styrofoam or wooden eggs, as I preferred if possible to use thrifted or recycled materials, and eventually I found this pattern to use to make patchwork fabric eggs. Perfect!

I scrounged around to see what I had on hand, and came up with these two as my "practice" eggs. The first "egg" uses leftover fabric from the first shirt to dress refashioning I did for Miss 6. I had to slip-stitch the opening I used for stuffing the egg, and my hand sewing is really clumsy and obvious, so I decided to cover up the seams using a bit of pink ribbon I had. Ta da:

It doesn't really look like an egg as such, does it? I didn't use any interfacing as the pattern suggests, as I don't have any, but I don't know that that would have made too much difference to the shape? Do you think it looks a bit naff with that bow on top? I can't decide whether I like it or not?

Anyway, for egg #2 I used some leftover acrylic felt we had, and I lined the seams with some pick ric rac i had bought for Miss 6's refashioned dress:

It looks more egg-ish (i.e. egg-shaped) to me, but for some reason it turned out bigger than the first? Perhaps the felt stretched while I was stuffing it? I've read a lot about crafters preferring wool felt to acrylic felt to work with and I think I know why now, the acrylic is very hard to hand sew - the needle just doesn't want to slip through it.

The kids seemed to think they look OK, and they are for them, LOL, so I think I will continue making them. The only problem is I have less than three weeks now to make a whole bunch of them! Clearly, I'm going to be a busy little vegemite for a couple of weeks.

In order to keep me motivated and getting them churned out, I thought I might post pics of the ones I've finished each day in lieu of normal posts? Who knows it might give someone, somewhere, some ideas, LOL. I plan to try and make each one from mostly thrifted or reused fabric and materials, although I do have some beads and sequins I might use. I know I have some pillow slips I never use, and I've just been through Miss 2's summer wardrobe so I know there are a number of items that are way too worn, torn or stained be given away, so they are likely candidates to be cut up and resewn as well. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to sew I go....