Sweet Shoppe Designs – The Sweetest Digital Scrapbooking Site on the Web

Hi there! Jen Tapler here with another Hot 4 Hybrid post that I hope will inspire you to print out some of your fave digi goodies, get out some glue and get crafty! This week I decided to try my hand at a Recycled / Upcycled project in keeping with the 10-point Hybrid Challenge for the April Scrapper’s Portfolio challenges. The hybrid challenge this month, in honor of Earth Day, is to reuse and recycle things you have around your house to create a new project. The sky really is the limit with this challenge, so get creative! I wanted to do something Spring-y and decided to Upcycle some really ugly plastic Easter eggs a neighbor kid had left at our house last year (I’m not even sure why we kept these, but now I’m glad I did!). I also dug into our giant newspaper recycling bin – these supplies along with Lauren Grier’s Things Will Be Just Fine kit and some Mod Podge were all I needed to create some cute little paper mache eggs to decorate the house for Spring!

I started by cutting pieces of newspaper into strips and using the Mod Podge to glue the newspaper directly to the plastic eggs. Now, some people may say that the use of the plastic eggs as a “mold” is cheating and therefore this doesn’t really count as Paper Mache. But I say to them “Whatever. Do you know how hard it is to mold wet sticky paper into the shape of an egg!? Because I tried that. And it sucks. It does NOT look like an egg when you’re done. It looks kind of like a wet newspaper turd” (can I say that word here? I hope I don’t get fired for that). So yeah. I gave up on that and decided to Save the Earth and keep those ugly plastic eggs out of the landfill! (or something like that). So anyway, I gave the newspaper strips a good soaking with my Mod Podge and then glued them to the plastic eggs. Just slap them on there all random-like until the plastic is good and covered. And yes, there are recipes out there for Paper Mache Paste that use Watered Down Elmer’s Glue and even some that just use flour and water and some other kitchen stuff, but I went with the Mod Podge. I did try the Elmer’s Glue, but it wouldn’t stick to my plastic egg.

Once the egg was good and covered with newspaper, I set them aside and let them dry. And then I spent awhile washing my hands. Because if you do this, you can just plan on your hands getting dirty and COVERED with glue. It was really nice. And there is just something about peeling that dried Mod Podge from your hands and fingernails for the next few hours that’s oddly satisfying. I did let the eggs dry overnight. I don’t know if it really takes that long, but I was just ready for bed after this step. Once they were dry, I printed out large (5×7 inch) pieces of 3 of my favorite papers from Lauren’s kit and cut them into small strips. Then I repeated the Mod Podge, gluing and drying process with those strips and was left with 3 absolutely stunning (if I do say so myself) Spring Eggs!

And there you have it! My recycled newspaper / upcycled ugly egg Eggs! I love them. What do you think?