Joanne Gonzales
Here is why you need to make string Easter eggs: they are messy, they take a long time to make, and the balloons make the coolest glass-breaking/creaky noises when you finally get to pop them. It’s SO satisfying.
Oh yeah, they’re also kinda cute, aren’t they?
Supplies:
Directions:
Blow up some balloons with the pumper-upper, because your face will explode if you try to blow these suckers up with your breath.
Set up the ingenious drying rack I devised for the paper mache pencils project. Or you can probably just set the eggs on wax paper after you wrap them, but it’s not nearly as fun as clothes pinning them to a cooling rack.
Cut arm-lengths of embroidery floss- I used about 6-8 for each balloon. Experiment with putting different colors together, or use one color per balloon.
Mix up a bowl of glue with enough water (add a small amount at a time), to make it just runny enough to soak into the embroidery thread.
*Note* I’ve had several comments from people that their string never set up with their mixture of glue and water. I’m not sure how their mixtures differed from mine, but this is not an exact science: you may have to experiment until you find a good ratio. My rule of thumb is water down the glue just enough so that it coats the floss easily.
Take a piece of your thread and dunk it into the bowl of water glue, pressing it in all the way so that the whole length of the thread gets nice and saturated. Grab an end of the thread and wring it out between your fingers as you pull it from the bowl.
Now wrap it around the balloon, and follow suit with each piece of thread until it looks good to you.
I clipped the balloons to the drying rack with a clothes pin – just make sure they aren’t touching each other, and won’t be knocked over.
After a few hours, your string will have dried and you can pop the balloons. We had a very fun family few moments poking tacks into the balloons and watching/listening to them as they slowly deflated. Pull the balloons out with your fingers or tweezers.
Note: To be safe, you might want to let these dry overnight or even up to 24 hours. You don’t want to go through all that work only to find they haven’t set up properly.
Now is the time to decide if you want to display your string eggs in a lovely bowl, or tie embroidery thread to them and hang them from your Ikea light. I was so tempted to tie them to a ceiling fan. 🙂
If you like these, you might love my alternatives to traditional Easter eggs.
This type of material, including mache, is ridiculously fun to work with.
It so is. It also takes a lot of the stress out of it if you figure out the little tips and tricks to using it ahead of time. Have you made some cool stuff?
A yarn egg last year that was a complete flop. lol
Love your eggs. But when I tried it, they just collapsed after I popped the balloon. What did I do wrong?
Oh no! The only things I can think of are that you need a ratio of more glue to water, they didn’t dry long enough, or maybe you used washable glue? I’m not sure if washable glue works or not…. If you have the energy to try them again, maybe make your glue-water mixture more gluey and less watery. Do you think any of these sound like what happened?
Have you heard if this works with yarn? Do I need to leave more glue on the yarn since it is thinker? I have one tester drying right now, but thought I would check before I get too far into this!!
Thanks!
Loretta
Ooooooh, let me know! I bet yarn will look really pretty- maybe just let it soak longer in the glue mixture so it gets really saturated?
will Elmer’s glue work when water is added? I tried one several months ago and it all stuck together into a ball when I popped the balloon!! 🙂 love these! and really want to make several people one for this Easter!!
Oh and WHY WATER balloons?
Yes to Elmer’s! Okay. Could you have popped the balloon too early? I’m picturing this caving in on itself if it’s not completely dry. Honestly, it took me a couple of tries before I got it right. But not so many to be frustrating. Oh- and I used water balloons just because of the size. You can blow up regular balloons, but they’ll be HUGE!!!
Wow! These eggs are so beautiful!!! You are a yarn egg genius!
Why I’ve never been called a yarn egg genius before! Blush.
I would love to make these with my classes but we are a latex free school because of health issues. Can anyone think of a substitute for the balloon? I’m stumped.
Ack! That’s a tough one, because you need to have something that deflates so you can remove it and leave the dried string in tact. Unless you can find some sort of clear plastic eggs? Maybe? That’s all I got…. Good luck!
Weg werp handschoenen. Latex vrij.
Heb het niet geprobeerd.
Misschien als je de vingers er af knipt en die probeerde op te blazen.
I tryed making these an Im not having any luck.. The last ine I made the balloon popped before it was fully dry..
My question is when it is fully dry should it be movable at all?? Or rock hard…
Wanting to know what the finished result should feel like?????
The last one I attempted to make was hard but movable if that makes sense… The balloon poped before it was fully dry..
A friend made one also but said her is harder.. What am I doing wrong?
I have tried dipping the string in just glue, I tried the water and glue mixture, and have no luck when I pop the balloon the whole thing falls in. Not sure what I am doing wrong the last one I did I let it dry for 2 hours. It’s looks like the string is glued to the balloon so when I pop it it falls in.
Yuck, I wish I could help the people here who aren’t having luck with this project- what kind of glue are you using? Maybe it has something to do with that, or maybe let them dry longer? My glue stuck to the balloons a bit, but when I popped the balloons, it ended up pulling away. If parts of the string started to collapse, I would push it back out and gently separate the balloon from the string and glue.
Love this project. Just made some samples for my Kindergarten spring project. It will be a tad messy for little fingers, but I’m sure they will enjoy it!
Oh, so messy! But they will love it if you are brave enough to tackle it with them. I’d love to see what they do.
I love your egg craft..but I actually thought id get directions to make the dandelion?? That’s what was pictured on pintrest.
Hi Chris- I’m not sure which pin you clicked through from- was it one of mine? If it was someone else’s, maybe they added the wrong link to the pin? Sorry I can’t be of more help! I haven’t done a dandelion tutorial on my blog, so maybe it was part of somebody’s roundup of crafts?
Ps have already pinned egg tutorial to my “spring” page…….
I know most of the dandelion pompom tutorial was pictured on the page…but need clarification for step 2! (not sure what I’m seeing!?)
These are fun to cut a hole fill with easter grass and chocolate eggs and small chocolate easter rabbit instead of an Easter basket
I made these eggs with a flour & water mixture. Yeah, they do tend to collapse if they get wet – but my son could happily bite them without me stressing myself silly. He doesn’t eat them – he just bites them. Boys are so much fun….
Mine didn’t work. I made one with embroidery floss and one with yarn. I used 1 T water to 1 T elmers school glue. I made them at 9pm last night and popped them at 7am. Both balloons POPPED when punctured, no fizzling here. The yarn egg completely collapsed but the floss one might be salvageable. Maybe. I’d like to try again but wish there was an exact recipe to follow.
I used a regular sized balloon and put a treat or toy inside the balloon before blowing it up. And I only blew it up to the size of a duck egg or maybe a tad bigger. That’s a way to get something inside without having to cut a hole!
Thanks for the instructions! The yarn collapsed the first time I made one. But I think that was because I didn’t wait long enough (it was about 3 hours of drying). I tried again and left it to dry overnight, and it worked perfectly. Thank you!
Oh! That’s good to know- I’m glad you had luck with them. I bet this is why other people have trouble with them collapsing, too. 🙂 Waiting can be sooooo hard…….
When I was in elementary school, about a hundred years ago or so, one of my teachers had us make string eggs. We used liquid starch instead of glue. She brought in enough empty egg shells for each of us to use. There is a trick to emptying out an egg without breaking the egg shell. But, forget about those sunny-side up fried eggs. We would dip string or yarn into the liquid starch to make sure it is well saturated. Then we wrapped the yarn or string around the egg like in your demo. After the string dried completely, she showed us how to break the shell without doing much damage to the string. I’m not sure if liquid starch is available to purchase anymore; so, glue would probably be the most available product and from your demo, it does the same thing.
How cool that you used real eggs for these! It must have been a bit messy, though. 🙂 My husband made a giant string hanging light cover a few years back using liquid starch, so I know it’s still available. I think he went through a lot of bottles of it and I can’t remember how much string he used, but it was rolls and rolls of it, because he wrapped it all around a giant punching balloon. Maybe I should do a test to see if the starch or glue works better for these. Hmmmmm….
Hi Jeanette.
I “bumped” into this site while I was looking for examples of African masks. I remember doing this string egg when I was a kid, a bizillion years ago. I still paper mache with my G-Baby. I have always mixed flour and water to get a nice smooth paste instead of glue and water. Old habits are hard to break. I tried the starch a few times, but my balloon always collapsed, so I went back to the flour and water trick. I love the drying rack you made and plan to add it to my art stuff. Anyway, thanks for the tips and the memories.
Hi Tommie! Thanks for your feedback- it’s interesting to hear from people who have their tried and true techniques for doing things; I think it always takes a little trial and error when you first make paper mache especially.
But then it’s so worth it when you figure out your favorite way. Sort of like cooking, huh? 🙂
Does the Embroidery floss come in colors or am I missing something…
Yes! I’ve updated the links – they should all be pointing to the right products now.