Inspired by the Incredible Edible Egg & Rescued by an Incredible Not So Edible Plastic Egg

It's PCAGOE Challenge time again. This month’s challenge was a technique that is fairly common and unique to polymer clay. Each member had to create a piece (functional or decorative) by covering an egg with polymer clay. I had only tried to cover an egg one other time and let me say it was not so successful, so I was a bit apprehensive about giving it another try, but since I run the challenge, I kinda feel I have to create something each month as an example. So I decided to brave the egg again. I got an idea immediately. My stepmother had some eggs that she had run ribbon through and hung from a basket ornaments and I always wanted to make one of my own. I had also been sketching some damask patterns in my sketchbook recently and decided I would put the two together and make a damask egg ornament.

First I made the blown egg and then I drew the basic design onto it to get an idea of scale for the stamp carving.












Next I sketched the design on a piece of paper and tried my best to make it symmetrical. I tend to just draw freehand on my stamps, so trying to do the symmetrical thing didn't really work out, so I ended up just drawing it out on the stamp. It wasn't perfectly symmetrical, but close enough and I figured the curves of the egg would help me disguise the tiny differences.













Here is where it got a bit tricky. I needed to put a base coat of clay on the egg and as I did, I cracked and destroyed the egg. Of course I hadn't blown out any more in anticipation of the inevitable. Some other PCAGOE Members had success with plastic eggs, so since I still had a ton of plastic eggs all over my house from Easter. I thought that would be the best way to go. I used my craft blade to carve a hole at each end for the ribbon to go through and then I glued it together and covered it with the clay. So much easier and a lot more successful than the real egg.













Next I had to stamp the clay, cut out each little piece and put them all on the egg. I also made 3 beads to use as accents.













Then it was time for paint. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to use light pink. I just really like the black and pink damask look. I wasn't thrilled with the way the color turned out (I wish it had been more pink), but I didn't really have time to paint it again.













Finally I distressed the egg, glazed it and put it all together with the ribbon.













And now it is entered in the challenge and hanging in my studio. It was a little gift to myself, so it won't be in the shop. I think I will make some more at Christmas and maybe Easter next year. It actually was a lot of fun ( but I will definitely be sticking with the plastic eggs)! You can have some fun too by going to PCAGOE.com and voting for your favorite egg. There are 27 to choose from and once you vote you are automatically entered to win one of 2 great prizes (see below).




Here are the prizes:


or



So get out there this week and create with an egg or just try something that you weren't so successful with in the past. You may find that it's better the 2nd time around. I did!