Spring Eggs and Needle-felting Nests

Continuing our egg adventures, we decided to sit down during our handwork session and make little nests with wooden eggs today.

First one of my gypsy princesses got on her silk veil with a silk flower hairpin we made last year for my sil's wedding...


Then we set to work. We got out our tiny wooden eggs.

The girls picked Easter colors and each painted four with acrylic paints.

I decided to go with our Stockmar water color paints and ended up just dropping my whole egg into the container for a minute.

While the eggs were drying, we got out our needle-felting tools to make our nests. For needle-felting, you need a foam pad, your wool, and a needle or tool. For my girls, I have found the "Clover Needle Felting Tool" with the fine needles works really well for careful children because it has a plastic safety clip around the needles which retracts when in the unlock position as you push down on it.

Usually the girls use a single needle with a wooden handle, but for this project, we decided to try the clover.

With needle felting, it is important to always remember that the direction you push the needle in, must be the same direction it comes out. Otherwise, you will break the needle (don't worry - happens to us all!)...

The needles are extremely sharp, so I wouldn't recommend them for young children (under 6 or 7) or ones who move quickly or are careless. It takes patience and concentration. Even though my girls have been needle felting since they turned 6, they have been carefully monitored. Now, they need less supervision. Some Waldorf circles don't recommend needle felting at all with young children as the punching motion might be too grounding. Others seem to see it as part of beneficial handwork and creativity.

As we were shaping our nests, we added some moss to it for a more authentic look.

Once the nests were finished, the eggs were dry and polished with beeswax.

Here is the finished product!

And then we went outside to place them in the trees.

Couldn't resist this cute picture of our Farley who turns 12 on St. Patty's Day! My Welsh/Irish lad :D

And here is a shot of my nest with the eggs after watercolor painting and polishing. I will be adding them to my new etsy shop (will be having a give-away in celebration!)

We had so much fun, we removed our oceanscape from our Nature Studies Block and set up a spring seasonal table. We got out our beautiful sprites from Syrendell. The girls and I purchased them natural and then painted them ourselves.

And now, we wait for spring!