DIY: Egg Tree for Spring Celebrations

Creating a nature table delightfully engages my family in Nature’s changing seasonal wardrobe. This year, we’ve created an egg tree to stand amidst the egg carton caterpillars and butterflies we’ve been adding to our table over the last month and a half. (Lots of butterflies: tissue butterflies, watercolor on coffee filter butterflies, and of course, the traditional paint-daubed-then-folded butterflies that never lose their magic.)

We started in late March by blowing the yolks and whites from every egg we cooked with. (Note: for an easy job blowing eggs, we poked holes with a small nail, then inserted thin wire to stir the yolks slightly and break them up.) Now we have a collection of Ukrainian-style Easter eggs decorated with melted wax and store-bought dye, as well as Easter eggs imprinted with leaves as they soaked in natural egg dyes made from purple cabbage, coffee, beets and turmeric.

It’s fairly simple to make the egg tree:

We collected branches from a nearby eucalyptus tree (so many have fallen in these fierce spring winds!) and arranged them in a vase. I selected branches with many smaller twigs spinning off their main branch, so I only needed to place three branches in the vase, balanced so as not to tip over. You could also select a bunch of twigs and secure them in florist foam within your vase.

Then we strung our eggs on ribbons. To do this, I threaded both ends of a length of ribbon (about 10″ long) onto a narrow wire. The loop is what you’ll use to hang your egg, while the ribbon ends dangle at the bottom.

I pushed the ribbon through the hole in the egg.

Then, Jasmine secured a bead with big knots to each side of the egg. Because her young fingers are not quite as dexterous as my own, she used a matchstick to poke the ribbon through bead hole.

Voila!
Finished Egg Tree

Read more: Nature, Children, Crafts & Hobbies, Outdoor Activities

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Sas S.

1:19PM PDT on May 21, 2010

nice one!!!

send a green star

Alan B.

6:48AM PDT on May 16, 2010

We live full time in a motor home. We never know where we will be at Easter-time. We have three dozen decorated eggs which we have either bought or our children made when they were growing up that we carry with us. It is never a problem of finding a branch along side a road near a campground which has already been cut off. We fill a pot or pail with local sand to hold the branch. So each year we enjoy the beauty of memories of when the kids were young. No need to blow eggs each year and thus support the chicken industry!

Maureen H.

8:38PM PDT on Apr 20, 2010

Lovely. Somebody in my area made an outdoor version, just stringing the plastic filler eggs on a bush (leafless). It was amazingly nice-looking.

Sonny H.

3:10PM PDT on Apr 20, 2010

Great idea.

Grace J.

8:36AM PDT on Apr 17, 2010

so pretty great idea never did this before

Judeth B.

10:37AM PDT on Apr 6, 2010

We used to do this years ago.

Melissa M.

8:46AM PDT on Apr 6, 2010

been doing it for years, a wonderful family tradition passed down from my great grandmother

Mrs M.

5:29PM PDT on Apr 3, 2010

Very interesting project.

Janice P.

5:28PM PDT on Apr 3, 2010

The egg tree reminded me of something I saw years ago. It was a garland made of decorative eggs, rather like these. It was really lovely when draped over a mantel. The person who made it all those years ago is gone now, so I can't find out how to make it. Would anyone have directions for something like that?

Ellinor S.

5:27AM PDT on Apr 3, 2010

I used to do that when I was a kid.