{Insert Egg Pun Here}

I hate hard boiled eggs. I think they are gross. Slimy bland outside, chalking dry eggy inside. {blech}. So while it is rotten that Robbie is allergic to eggs, it really doesn't hinder our life too much as we are not big egg eaters. If he eats eggs, he gets hives. Too many "egg ingredient" meals in one week causes him to get rough rashy patches on his legs and torso.

But! I LOVE TRADITIONS. And darn it, if the Easter holiday calls for egg decorating, by golly, we are going to to do it. Enter the salt dough ornament. We made salt-dough ornaments at Christmas and gave them away. Robbie had a blast, so I thought we'd do it again. I used a different recipe this time, which I ended up not liking as well. Next time, I'll go back to the one I used at Christmas.

Salt dough: 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt, 1.5 cups warm water. Mix/knead to form a smooth dough. Add more flour if dough is sticky. Roll onto floured surface. Cut with cookie cutters. Bake 300 degrees for an hour or until 'dry'.

Enter the biggest problem. I only roll and cut cookies at Christmas. So, what to I do for an Easter shape? I have circles, hearts, stars, stockings, trees, men, etc. I have other holidays like a turkey, a four leaf clover, a palm tree, etc, but no oval or egg. I have a cross... but I am weird about food being "religious" which is a whole other blog entry. So hunting through my cabinets, I found this:
This is a tool used for chopping nuts like pecans or walnuts. Egg shape! Awesome. So we rolled the dough. We cut out the eggs and we used a straw to poke holes in the top for hanging. (The straw poking was Robbie's favorite part.)

Into the oven with you, my little eggys.

Once they had cooked dry (about 45 min) and cooled, I mixed up some of my acrylic paints, adding white to lighten the shades and make them more "Eastery." I find that the ice cub tray is a handy little paint tool for my budding artist. I like to leave several cubes empty so he can mix his own colors.

Big concentration.

Every artist should blend, blend, blend!

At the end, everything was sort of multicolored and splotchy.

Perfect!

Adding a sprinkle of glitter makes for a shiny springtime.

Robbie was a bit heavy handed with the glitter, but hey, it was his first time and a kid's gotta learn somehow!

After the paint dried and Robbie went to bed, I pulled out the trusty clear polyurethane varnish and gave the eggs a coating. This dough doesn't last long if you don't seal it. If there is moisture in the air, they sort of swell and crumble. (creepy) Tomorrow after the varnish is dry, we will decorate them with ribbons maybe and hang them around the house. We may also mail a few out to relatives... the recipe made 16 eggs... that's a lot of eggs. Hoppy Easter! (Almost made it through without a single pun!)