Egg craft - how to prepare a clean and empty eggshell

Easter's coming!! I've blown out a lot of eggs and here is a how-to for blowing out eggs in large quantities. This tutorial is a bit long as I've done it too many times and have made tonnes of mistakes there're lots of stuffs I wanna share!

Tools:

- Bulb syringe (you can get it from the pills aisle in the supermarket)

- A Large bowl
- pin
- paper clip
- eggs
- paper towels
- lunchbox (big enough for the egg content!!)





Steps to empty egg content:

1) Fill the large bowl with warm tap water
2) Let the eggs sit in the warm water for 10 mins. While waiting, clean all the equipment and egg surface.
3) Dry one egg with paper towel. Let other eggs bath in warm water to stay warm.












4) Use the pin to punch a hole on the south pole and north pole. Approach it gently then gradually increase your force. Wipe away the powdery debris after punching hole.












5) At the south pole, poke a few more holes that are IMMEDIATELY NEXT TO the first hole (i.e. such that the holes will become a big hole altogether). Then you will have a 3mm diameter hole at the south pole.

                                                       

6) Unwind the paper clip a bit, so you'll have a stirrer. Stick it into the egg from the south pole. Stir the egg yolk in circles gently. This is to break the egg yolk.











7) Above a lunchbox, hold the egg upright and apply the bulb syringe at the north pole, make sure the mouth is tightly in contact with the egg shell. Squeeze the bulb gently, go slowly to begin with. Egg content should start dripping into the lunchbox.




8) as you squeeze the bulb if you could feel a lot of resistance which prevents the egg content from coming out, use your stirrer again, and give the yolk a few stirs. Then try the bulb again.
9) Keep repeating step 7) and 8) with lots of patience until all the egg content is out.

Note: Don't drop the eggshell!!! I dropped one onto the kitchen floor by mistake. Hard work all gone. The strong arch structure of the egg shell is destroyed by punching a hole at the poles. It is extra fragile.

Steps to clean the egg content residue:
1) Now you've got like 10 empty egg shells.
2) Fill the large bowl with warm water.
3) Squeeze the bulb syringe and let it be filled with warm water.
4) Squeeze the water in from the bulb syringe.
5) shake-shake-shake!
6) Empty the water inside the egg by pushing air into the egg with the bulb syringe. You shall see the yolky stuffs coming out too.
7) Repeat steps 3) to 6) again and again, until the egg is cleaned thoroughly.

Home-made spray glue

Found a how-to about home-made spray glue!!!
I'll try it out once I get through the storms... Spray glue is superb when applying glitter.

http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/spritz-glue

How to make Asian paper fan of 2 inches width

Fan is something invented in ancient Asia when there was no air conditioning. Nowadays paper fan is still used in daily life. If you look at the Japanese luxury paper you always find fan in the design. 

Here is a tutorial of how to make a paper fan. It could be used for your crafty projects which goes well with a tint of Asian element. 

Equipment: 

Scoring board

Embossing tool or a mechanic pencil with removed lead stick

Paper (anything but thick cardstock) 

scissors

glue

pencil 

Step1) Cut out a piece of paper - 5cm X 7cm. This will make a fan of width ~ 2 inches

Step2) Score it at 1/4 inch intervals. 

Step3) Fold it and make a crease. 

Step4) Mark with pencils - on the the first segment as shown in this picture. 

Step 5) Cut out the corners, including your pencil markings. 

Step 6) Fold according to the scored lines. 

Step 7) Remember in step 3 you made a crease? Do it again to strengthen it. Then apply glue at the gates as shown. Squeeze the two gates together. 

Step8) Almost done. Still needa do some strengthening. 

Step9) The lower folds could still be a bit lose. Apply a drop of glue at the center. 

Step10) Squeeze it real hard. Finished!! 

The end are flat surface for applying double sided tape or glue. Perfect for card making!!

Hope it helps. :) 

Scrap paper - 3D little decos

Good morning!! Snowing outside again! How I wish to go up to the mountain! Hehe.

Every time when I go to craftstore I get stuck in the sticker aisle for long. They're so good to look at! Peeking into infinity. Peeking into a black hole. But most of the time I grab nothing from that aisle coz the stickers aren't cheap...

Here's another use of punched out shapes - can glue them together and make them 3D!! Tiny and cute ornaments. Good for cards, or other projects you're working on.

It would be awesome if we could have a paper crafters group and we could order stickers in large amount altogether.. Do let me know if you've heard of any!

Dry Embossing Stencil - DIY

Dry embossing stencils are not cheap and the patterns available in store aren't abundant. I'm gonna try making some following this tutorial from ehow.com . Will write about it soon. If it works, it would be worth the effort.

http://www.ehow.com/how_12070970_make-dry-embossing-templates.html

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Updates -

Tried it with a small circle punch and some cardstock scrap. It was not easy to fold the card in a way that the circles overlap perfectly in every fold. Might get challenging if the stencil you plan to create is more than a simple circle.

Shortcut - If you have a cutting machine, you could do the same by cutting out 8 rectangles with the circle inside it. Stack them and staple them. The alignment will be a piece of cake.