Paper Easter Eggs

My Paper Easter Eggs are all finished and the pattern is available on http://www.patternsonline.com/.

It has been a fun journey. It started out with the idea of painting perforated paper.

All I did was take basic "school supply" watercolors. You know what I'm talking about - 8 colors. I skipped the brown and black so that left 6 colors. I just painted narrow stripes along the perforated paper sometimes close enough to allow them to blend. I didn't get the paper too wet because I didn't want it to warp. I did warp slightly, but not enough to affect the stitching.

Next, I had to come up with some egg outlines so I traced plastic eggs (thats slightly less hazardous than tracing real eggs). Then I got to make up some bizzare patterns to fill the eggs.

Once stitched, the designs don't look too exciting. The magic appears when they are cut out and the backing is applied.

I tried not to stress too much about cutting them out. I just did it free-handed with my good paper scissors. The margin isn't always even but it doesn't seem to matter, as long as the cut is smooth. (Look at the egg at the bottom right - I'm way too close to the stitching). At this point, they look more like Easter Eggs, but whatever background tends to show through the holes in the perforated paper.

Once they are glued to a matching background paper, the eggs appear to be more of a solid because the holes are no longer visible. Once you cut the eggs from the background you have one more chance to "fix" any problems with the edges.

I'm really careful glueing because I don't want gobs of glue oozing through the holes so I use the glue sparingly. I'm also very careful when I use the painted perforated paper. The paint is NOT colorfast and will run if it gets wet (or even damp).

It seems like months of work went into creating these little eggs. But, the actual time spent working was much less than the elapsed time.

I'll be making more next year. Different patterns, different colors. I also have more painted perforated paper that I'll need to stitch upon - something besides eggs.

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