By Jessica Wilson
I love Easter! I think it’s because of the baskets… and the eggs. Being an official grown-up and all, I have to be very clever as to how I present Easter goodies to my favorite people. Especially since we usually travel a few hours out of town to spend the holiday weekend with family. This year, I’m making surprise balls but with a twist: I’m making them into surprise eggs and you can too. Here’s how!
Materials
Plastic egg
1-3 spools of crepe party streamers
Tiny trinkets such as stickers, gummy candies, sponge capsules, etc.
Fun goodies to fit inside your egg
Glue stick
Small hang tag with string
Scissors
Marker
Directions
A surprise ball is a softball-sized sphere of crepe paper goodness. Check out this nifty ball and this one. Tucked inside the layers of wrapped paper you will discover all sorts of happy trinkets. From confetti and sequins to tiny plastic toys to sweets, the only rule to making one is keeping your trinkets as small and flat as possible. Don’t despair, though, there are ways to use slightly bulky trinkets — it’s all about the shaping and wrapping.
Step 1: Prep your crepe paper. It may not seem like it, but making a surprise ball takes up a lot of crepe paper. I thought 20 yards would do it but I was wrong. I needed so much more I lost count, but I think prepping for 10 yards to start is good. You may have flatter trinkets to work with, but be prepared to cut some more.
Unravel 1 yard of streamer and use your scissors to cut. Continue cutting until you have at least 5 strands (yards) of crepe paper in front of you. You can use all one color or mix it up a bit and switch off colors between trinkets. I used 3 colors for trinket wrapping and one more for the final wrap.
Step 2: Stack 3 strips on top of each other and fold in half 3 times until you have a square in front of you. With your scissors on the fold, cut your square in half. Continue until you have thinner strips of crepe paper.
Step 3: Gather your trinkets and fill your egg with the slightly larger, bulkier items. These will be the extra special trinkets, like a finger puppet or a piece of fancy chocolate.
Step 4: Begin wrapping. To start, grab a length of crepe paper streamer and hold one end down on the egg with one hand and gently tug to wrap with your other hand. The crepe paper has some stretch to it, but if you pull too hard it will rip. Depending on where it rips, you may still be able to use it, so don’t stress if it happens. I ripped many pieces as I wrapped. As you wrap with each streamer, you will want to wrap in a crisscross direction, kind of like when you wind a ball of string (or extension cord). Try to wrap in the same direction to keep the layering even on your egg. That is, the first strand will go in one direction and the next strand in another, but keep each going in the same direction you began with. I hope that makes sense. So for your first wrap, start with one strand and give it a swirl around your egg.
Step 5: When you come to the end of your first streamer, select a flat trinket and hold it on top of the end of the streamer you just finished with. Grab your next streamer, in a different color if you wish, and place one end on top of the trinket. Beginning with something flat like a sticker will help you get the swing of wrapping while keeping your egg shape still egg-shaped. When you place the end of the new streamer on top of your trinket, point it in the opposite direction of the previous wrap. If you wrapped horizontally to start, tweak this streamer so that it wraps vertically. This will help keep your egg shape going. Wrap just like you did in Step 4.
Step 6: Continue adding trinkets and wrapping. As you build up your egg and/or add bulkier trinkets you may despair over having a lumpy ball shape. Don’t worry! Take your time and evaluate as you go. Check out the items you have to wrap and use them to help coax and sculpt your surprise ball back into its egg shape. A large item can be positioned to take advantage of a dip or bulk you have from a previous wrap, just pause and assess as you go.
Step 7: Same old, same old. As I got to the end of my surprise egg, I found I had a pointy top, not at all an egg shape. To correct it I used a pack of candy folded into a U-shape and it worked! I also added a round chipboard with a happy frog printed on it on the bottom of my egg to help it stand up without toppling over.
Once I got to the last item, I switched over to a dark pink streamer (had to cut about 3 yards to finish). I then wrapped all of them over the egg until I had covered up any remaining colors and snipped the end to a point.
Step 8: Decorate your hang tag with a sticker or two and write “pull me” on the back. Swipe a small bit of glue stick across the end of your final streamer and place the string from your tag on top so that the tag hangs past the end. Gently press into place.
Step 9: Decorate your egg with a wee bit of writing using markers or stickers. Hide in a special place and let the fun begin!
About the Author:
Jessica Wilson is most happily known as ‘jek in the box’ and spends most of her time crafting it up and taking pictures. She can often be found standing on benches over on Flickr and creating all sorts of kiddie crafts on her blog scrumdilly-do! She lives a life of scrumdillydilly and loves to share.
ADVERTISEMENT
