Egg – The Art of Cobwebs

I said last week (in The Wand of Doom post) that Little Cobs (my Grandson) and I had done another crafty project together, which I’d share in another post, and I’m here today to share that crafty project, along with some others which I started off, and he finished. All of what you are about to see were made with Little Cobs.

It all began with me mentioning that I knew that Fairies had Fairy Dragons which they rode on, and which protected all of Fairy Land from any dangers like fierce dogs or Ogres(!), and, I said, those Fairy Dragons laid eggs, from which Baby Dragons were born!

Little Cobs, naturally wanted to see a Fairy Dragon Egg. Hmm. Now I’d seen on Pinterest and on someone else’s blog, some ‘Dragon Eggs‘ which were just incredible. But … not suitable at all for a small child, as they were made from drawing pins (thumb tacks). Knowing Little Cobs as I do, I knew that he’d pick those pins out one at a time until there was a trail of them through the house!

So I had to come up with another idea. And I did. And … that original idea turned into another one, and then it made me think of something else … and on and on until … well … I’ll share the photos, and then you’ll see.

It all began with a polystyrene egg … which I painted first to take away the white (but you can get away without doing that bit, if you want to try this out). Then, using glue gel in a syringe, I fixed assorted Candi (made by Craftwork Cards) and overlapped the Candi dots, to make the ‘Dragon Scales’.

Dragons Scales Egg 1 - Half completed — Photo showing the egg, half way through the making process.

Once I’d finished fixing all the Candi dots in place, the egg looked like this ….

Dragons Egg 5 — A Dragon Egg . . . but it needed ‘the Magic!’

The glue gel needs 24 hours to dry – and unless you’re really careful, I’d suggest covering the egg with the Candi dots in two sessions. It’s not a quick to do project, so don’t think you’ll get away with it being finished in an hour. You get quicker as you get used to it … but it’s still a good couple of hours or more to cover an egg.

The egg looked impressive exactly like that – and Little Cobs loved it … but it needed some Fairy Magic to actually bring it to that special place that children love. So … out came the Buff It – by Pinflair. (one of my most favourite crafting items in my craft room – I absolutely love it!). I told my project manager (aka Little Cobs) to choose three colours of the Buff it – which took him ages, – that kid likes to change his mind a lot! lol. I gave him a cosmetic sponge and showed him how to get just a little bit of Buff It on the sponge, and gentle swipe it over the Dragon Scales on the Egg. And when we’d finished, this …. is what had happened …

He was absolutely delirious with joy at this egg. He didn’t want to put it down. He took it to Grandad so that it could be admired. He showed it to the Dog, and even to Alf Capone (one of the cats), who I interpreted for (I speak several languages – English, Dog, Cat, Horse, Rabbit and [mostly] Gobbledygook), and said that Alf was very impressed and believed that it really was a Fairy Dragon Egg – adding that Alf would know this because he played with the fairies every single day!

From there, we went on to colour another Egg I’d pre-made ready for him, this time using all Pink Candi dots . . .

… as you can see we coloured that one totally in Antique Gold Buff It – and you can just see the pink of the Candi Dots peeping out from between the scales, which kind of gives it a sort of rosey glow about it.

…. this picture (above) is of the exact same egg, but stood up (balanced on a glitter shaker lid), with a penny coin, so that you can get an idea of the size.

So, those Candi dot eggs completed, out came some more polystyrene eggs, only this time I did something totally different with them, and Little C and I coloured them up … and here’s what they look like…

This effect of a lumpy, bumpy egg came about by using a heat gun. Now if you try it yourself be aware that you have to be REALLY careful with the heat. Firstly … DON’T HOLD THE EGG IN YOUR HAND while using the heat gun on it. And don’t hold the heat in one place for too long. You have to keep the heat moving around and know when to stop heating. As soon as you begin to see a result that you like, then stop.

Little Cobs wanted to use only Pearl coloured Buff It on this bumpy egg, but I said that it might look a little boring so talk him into letting me add just little bits of colour, here and there, and blended them well, so that it looked as if it had that lustre of a real pearl – or the colours of Mother of Pearl.

My Project Manager made the executive decision of BLUUUE! (said like that too! lol) – for this egg. Again, this lovely effect was done using the heat gun – but very gently. Once we’d coloured up the egg and Little C had ‘polished’ it to a sheen, it was just fabulous… in fact, it reminded me of a Chocolate Easter Egg, wrapped in foil and waiting for me to break it open and eat!

And finally . . . I wanted to do something that wasn’t Dragon … something with more ROAR and GROWL and ARGGH! . . . and thought that perhaps I could get a result that was more grungy and pitted – in the hope of making a Dinosaur Egg!

This result came from carefully heating the egg in places for a while, then coming back and heating that bit again, then again and again – until the desired result came about. It was still bumpy in some places, but more grungy in others. I have no idea what a Dinosaur Egg might look like, but this, I decided was what our Dino Egg was going to look like. 🙂

The Project Manager decided upon brown and green for the Dinosaur egg, and to be honest, I think he chose the perfect colours for it. They really worked as Dinosaur colours.

All in all we had an absolute ball of a time with these eggs. Great Crafting projects and lots of fun both in the making of and in the colouring up.

Oh crikey! … almost forgot ... all of the papers you see in the photographs is all Graphic 45 paper – from one of their more recent collections: ‘Fairy Dust’.

And that’s all there was to it! 😀

I still have two special eggs to show you – but those will be for another time. I think I’ve kept you here long enough, and that bit of coffee you’ve got left in your cup must surely be cold by now. Shall I get you another? Or do you have to rush off?

Thank you so much for coming. Happy Monday! I hope your week ticks along nicely, with no problems which make you pull your hair out, and no troubles like finding out you’ve got the work or the shops and forgotten your purse or keys.

May an Angel pass over your house and sprinkle your home with love, peace, joy and all the stuff which will give you contentment.

Have a blessed rest of your day, and a truly lovely week.

Sending squidges ~

I had a card making day …. and made a card with a sort of cottage, country feel to it. The card and papers used are all by Docrafts, who, by a remarkable coincidence, are based here in Dorset, where I live! (No I haven’t been and raided the warehouse in the dead of night … yet. But only because I think I’d need several helpers to bring home all the stash I’d want! lol)

The blue flower and green crochet doily (under the flower) are Prima and the feather … is from Edna.

No Edna isn’t a new craft producer … at least, she’s not a big time producer of craft items… she’s one of our chickens.

Edna is a big old bird who lays mahoosive brown eggs of roughly 3″ tall – (too big to fit into egg boxes – even the egg boxes from supermarkets which claim the enclosed eggs are ‘extra large’). We only have two chickens now, Edna, and Dorothy, and it’s a case of from the sublime to the ridiculous!

While Edna is the big, noisy old bird whose a rich, warm rusty colour, Dorothy, on the other hand, is a quiet, delicate looking, little thing, whose feathers are paler, mottled, and fluffy, and she has feathered feet, so she looks like she’s wearing feathered slippers. She’s a beautiful colour, and her eggs are darling and so little too – anything from half an inch to roughly an inch tall – and they’re a pretty blue colour. They‘re very rich eggs, a little too rich for me. She follows dear Edna around as if Edna has her on a lead. She also copies Edna… When Edna does the BIG LOUD “QUAAawwww, qwaw, qwaw, ack, ack, ack.” letting the world know that she’s about to lay an egg the size of a planet, Dotty tries to copy her, but the noises she makes come out like a creaky little whisper: “paw wah wah waah“. You couldn’t get two more extreme birds. But they do seem to love each other. Bless them.

When Edna goes into the hen house to lay her egg in one of the nest boxes, Dorothy goes in with her and more often than not we can find them both snuggled together in a nest box, keeping each other company while Edna lays her egg. However … Mr. Cobs went looking for the two darlings a few days ago and found them in one nest box, but … Edna (big bird) was sat ON TOP of Dorothy! Dotty must have gone into that particular nest box first, and Edna either went in to keep her company, or … she wanted to lay at the same time, and instead of choosing the nest box right next to Dotty, she clambered in and sat on top of her! We were quite frankly suprised that Dotty wasn’t squished!

Edna, like all birds, loses feathers every now and again. When she goes through a moult, she looks like a Mrs. Shabby Chic Clucker, than like a World Champion Sized Eggs Layer! Any feathers she drops I squirrel away and use them when I know that something needs one of her feathery gifts. This card needed a gift from Edna. I did toy with putting one of her eggs on it but didn’t think the Post Office would approve of a scrambled egg letter ~ so you have the little spotted egg you see in the photo above. (no, it’s not a real egg). lol.

just-foryou-eggstraspecial-5 — *A teeny tiny metal spoon, so that you can eat your boiled egg with it.*

The title of this post is ‘Just for You, … if you’d like it‘ and what I meant by that is that you could be the receiver of this card if you’d like to be.

I’ve never done a ‘give-away’ on my blog (I’ve never been sure anyone would want anything to be honest, – and I’m still not now) … but in the last few days I’ve seen a few blogs doing ‘give-aways’. Not of cards, but rather knitted things like mug sleeves or sewn items like a make up bag etc, but it made me wonder if bloggers who made cards ever did a give-away for a handmade card. I’d never seen any … and this led me to think that maybe it might be something fun and something to make someone smile so my mind was made up. I’d do a card ‘Give-Away!’

If you’re a follower of The Cobweborium Emporium blog, and would like to have your name ‘thrown into the hat’ and be in with a chance of receiving this card then please just leave a comment below with the word: GIVEAWAY – either at the start or the end of your comment.

To make sure that all is fair, I’ll get the Random Number Generator to choose the number, and I’ll also do a screen shot of the R.N.G and post it so that you can all see which number was generated.

If you’re the ‘winner’, then you have a choice. You can choose to have the card for yourself, in which case I’ll write the card to you, sign it and send it with love. Or … you can choose to receive the card un-written, so that you can write it and send it to someone else.

But … If you don’t want to enter but still want to leave a comment or have a ‘coffee chat’ , then please do. You really don’t have to get involved in a give-away. It’s just a bit of September fun. 🙂 Any comment which doesn’t have the word ‘GIVEAWAY’ at the beginning or end of a comment won’t be entered and you must be a follower of the blog here to enter.

This give-away is open to anyone who is a follower of The Cobweborium Emporium blog – no matter where you live. It’s not just for UK folks. I’ll close the ‘give-away’ entries on Wednesday 21st September 2016, at 6pm UK time. Only followers who have commented by that date and time, with the word ‘GIVEAWAY’ somewhere in their comment, will be included.

NB: Please DON’T put your real name or address in the comments box. I need to look after your privacy and security.

Well it’s Sunday and I’m not normally a poster on Sundays, so this is something which feels kind of odd to me. A nice odd though. It feels kind of warm and fuzzy. Friendly. Fabulous. Like I should be doing something normal, and instead I’ve been given time off to go and have a coffee with friends somewhere lovely.

Thank you so much for coming and having a coffee with me. I love seeing you here and love chatting with you in comments too. I’m so very blessed to know you all.

Have a wonderful day, whatever you’re doing.