Easy DIY Easter Ornaments

My great-grandmother, Muschi, had a kind of artistic green thumb. Loveliness seemed to sprout beneath her finger-tips.  She grew up in the countryside of what was Czechoslovakia and later became Austria.  Her style was folkloric, drawing on the Slavic and Germanic traditions, and dealt largely with flowers.  Thanks to her efforts, objects adorned with the flora of the Austrian countryside peppered our home: a painted umbrella stand and side table, coat hangers embellished with edelweiss and blue trumpet gentian, sweaters with clusters of roses and daisies,  and needle-point  floral cushions.   One of my most prized possession was a wooden doll bed painted with flowers, and  outfitted with gingham bedding and a horsehair-stuffed mattress.  

Muschi (as we called her)  also excelled in painting cherubic, dirndl and lederhosen clad children similar to those seen in Hummel figurines.  While I’m sure these children found their way onto other canvases, I remember them best on the blown egg ornaments that Muschi made for Easter.  Not content with the small size of chicken eggs, Muschi bought goose eggs at Viennese market.  These she emptied and painted with frolicsome  scenes of youth and spring.  She dedicated an egg each to my brother and me.  My egg had a little girl sitting in a blossoming tree and my brother’s egg had a merry urchin dancing hand-in-hand with a giant cockroach.   (Muschi had a sense of humor.)  The egg trees of my youth were lovely---pussy willow branches hung with the jewel-painted eggs hanging from silk ribbons.    They were nearly as exciting as our Christmas trees, lacking only in size and lights.

Fast forward 35 years, and I still love the tradition of the egg tree at Easter.  We usually have multiple around the house.   In year’s past, I’ve attempted to share the egg-painting tradition with my children, but blowing out eggs is a fairly messy, hyper-ventilation-inducing activity.  Also, Blown-eggs rarely survive in our  boisterous household—after all, they make such a lovely crunching sound!   In short, I’m not attempting them most years. 

But here’s a way of doing some light crafting, having an Easter tree and forgoing the painstaking process of blowing-out and painting real eggs!  Card stock spinner ornaments are simple to make and fun to customize.  They’re also surprisingly durable, and can be easily produced in batches for gifting.  Use cording, ribbon, or yarn for the the hangers.  Try making a bunting or garland by hanging multiple ornaments from the same string. 

 I sketched and colored the art for these ornaments, aiming to make some gentle, liturgically-inspired decor, that might and hold its-own amongst the bunnies and jelly-beans.   The angels have banners reading  “he is not here” (referencing the empty tomb) and “he is risen.”    

Not our actual Easter tree—-just some bare branches to give the gist. We’ll cut some blossoming branches in the coming days to serve for the Easter tree.

Here’s also the black-and white template, in case you’d like to use these for a coloring project.  You can see in the photo above that I used the same angel in blue purple color ways—-my purple-loving little girl urged me to include both.

Print the templates on cardstock and cut out the eggs.  Match up the edges and glue, sandwiching the cording between the cardstock faces.  Once dry, edge the ornament with a little paint (gold works well, and will match the color on the print).  The paint with cover up little misalignments of the faces of the ornament.  If you’re feeling brave, add glitter or glitter-glue!  

Gluing the ornament.

A craft like this can be a meditative task for a fasting day like Good Friday or for the quiet of holy Saturday.  

Lots of love to you as we finish the holy season of Lent and look forward to Easter blessings!