A Very Chinoiser-V Easter

Would you believe me if I said I set out to make deep pink eggs? I really did.  Of course I was going to make hot pink eggs.  Hello?! #favoritecolor.  They were not too pretty.  Something to do with my pink gel food coloring – it was all grainy and stuff, leaving all sorts of speckled glop on the eggs.  My perfectionist brain fractured and I almost quit right there.  But I had promised my 4 yr old a day of messy Easter Egg dye.  I briefly considered resorting to a PAAS kit.  But that is such a lame punk out thing to do and the resultant colors are always so limp.  Really, the truth is I didn’t want to go to the store.  So I went back into my stash of gel food colorings and opted for a darker situation.  This go round I was going for a rich turquoise.  And on paper, the paper towels that is, it worked.  The eggs, not so much.  But I love the happy accident.  The blue reminded me of an Imperial Chinese blue.  And as with all roads, this one leads back to Chinoiserie.  So even though I declared I wanted to get away from my standard blue and white for Easter – well, I give you blue and white Easter eggs and a chinoiserie-inspired table.

As for the eggs themselves, this is what I did.  I drew some motifs on contact paper, cut them out, and adhered them to the cooled hard-boiled eggs.  Not surprisingly, some of the dye seeped under a few edges.  I have tried similar methods with electrical tape with similar seepage results so I wasn’t all that surprised.  To clean up the edges, I used white paint and a fine brush to touch up the silhouettes.  I am not worried about the paint on these eggs as they won’t be eaten.

I had to.  COULD. NOT. RESIST. a pink egg with gold accent.  I blame my DNA.  You can see the speckling here that happened with the first batch of botched pink ones – which I suppose is kind of cool if you are going for a speckled egg look but clearly I was not.

Have a good Friday on this Good Friday!

All photos and layouts by mrs. V unless otherwise noted

kisses,  mrs. V