Easter Egg "Baskets"

We are well past the Easter basket stage in our family, but we are still into candy in a big way. The last few years I've been experimenting with "eggs" as a much smaller but still pretty version of a "basket". Last year was a dollar store plastic egg, about 6 inches long, the bottom half covered with Tim Holtz tissue tape. (This is easy enough to find in a craft or scrapbook store; collect a bunch using coupons and it's not so spendy.) Any washi tape that would look fine overlapped would do nicely.

Here's the egg in all its undecorated plastic glory.

Start with  applying short strips along the outside with a 

straight horizontal edge following the rim. 

Leave the  rim untaped so that the clear plastic top will fit back on it.

Then start placing random strips over the whole half, overlapping and two to four layers thick. Be sure to overlap the tape at the rim, without quite going all the way to the top, to help disguise the straight line around the egg. It helps to burnish down the edges of the tape with a bone folder. I lay the tape down and then tear it off so the ends don't have sharply defined edges.

 I chose to color the tape (by applying rubber-stamping dye ink with a foam applicator). Let that dry for awhile and gently buff off excess ink. Whether you color it or not, the next step is to seal the surface by brushing on a thin coat of a PVA adhesive. If there are tape edges or ends that are insisting on lifting up, brush a little adhesive underneath and press it down with the brush.

 The adhesive will keep the tape from lifting off, seal the ink, 

and will give the egg a soft matte sheen.  

Art Outpost: Washi Tape Easter Egg

The completed set, filled with Easter candy and tied with a wide wire-edged ribbon. 

My favorite of the lot were the ones covered in butterfly tape.