Make an Egg Shaped Easter Basket From String

With Easter so late this year it’s giving me plenty of time to think up tons of fun Easter crafts.  This particular basket is from the way back machine.  One of the ladies I used to baby sit for would make these every year for friends and family.  I took the concept and added a little spin all my own to come up with this year’s Easter basket.

So it’s time to break out the glue gun and get crafty!

Supplies:

Crochet thread (I purchased 1,000 yards for two balloons and it was way too much)

Fabric stiffener such as Stiffy

Bowl

Plastic wrap

Tape

Disposable bowl or cupcake tray

Balloon

1/4 Yard coordinating fabric

Weighty filler such as beans or rice

Glue Gun

Ribbon

Scissors

Sewing Machine

Let’s get started!  First prepare your work area.  Line your bowl with the plastic wrap.  As I discovered (after I had glue all over the place!) you might want to tape down the edges of that plastic wrap to the bowl.  If you care about the table you’re working on, you’ll need to cover that too.  I find that a trash bag works perfectly.

Now give your lungs a small workout and inflate a balloon.  Remember, you’re going for an egg shape so don’t over inflate.

Drop your string into your prepared bowl and give it a bath in Stiffy.  You want to make sure the string is saturated, but not in a pool of Stiffy otherwise you’ll be flinging that stuff all over your kitchen as you make your egg.

Wrap the end of the string around the top of the ballon to get started.  This will hold that first piece of slippery string in place until you can get enough in place that it will hold itself.

Continue wrapping your egg until you’ve got complete coverage.  This basket took me about a half hour.  You’ll want to add more Stiffy along the way when you get to string that isn’t saturated.

With your masterpiece complete, set the egg in a bowl or cupcake try to dry for 24 hours.  Half way through the drying process, turn your egg on its side so the bottom can dry throughly.

After the egg has had plenty of drying time, break out your pin and pop the balloon inside – I generally puncture it right next to the balloon top.

If you can, pull the top out, but don’t force it – you’ll have plenty of chance to get it out later.

Leave the sad, deflated balloon inside, we’ll grab him when we cut open the basket.

So the fundamental problem with making an egg shaped basket is that eggs don’t stand up on their own……

When my neighbor made these she would put them in a silver disposable bowl and try to dress it up, but I just never really liked that.  So I thought about it a bit and decided to put a weight in the bottom to see if it would stand the basket up – just like those weighted inflatable punching dummies we had when we were kids.  Don’t tell me you didn’t ever smack one of those and have it rebound right in your face!  So I grabbed a plate from my cupboard to use as a circle pattern.  Of course the size you need is going to vary depending on how how large your egg is, but for reference this plate is 8″ in diameter and I used a 5/8″ seam allowance.

No-Sew Cheater Alert: I bet you could just grab a zip-loc bag, throw some rice or beans in there and cover it up with lots of grass if you don’t have a sewing machine at home.

Sew two circles together leaving an opening for filling.

Clip the curves to take out bulk and turn the disk right side out.

Fill your weight to the desired fullness.  You can use rice, beans, or whatever you’ve got around for filling.  Here I’m using the lentils I used as a pie weight ONE time two years ago….why do I keep this junk?!  Oh yeah so I can make Easter baskets for Jack and Caroline….

Once you’ve completed operation fill, hand sew the opening of the weight closed.

Now for the drama, you’re going to have to cut into that egg.  You gotta be able to fill your egg basket right?  There is no correct way to do this, but I will say, start small.  You can always make the opening bigger, but you can’t make it smaller!

Here’s what I came up with, not perfectly circular, and just the right size for the box of Legos I got each of the kids.  Now is your chance to grab that balloon that was sitting in the basket.

Throw the weight in there and check out that magic!  Sweet, it looks like a little green yolk in there  And it totally stands up the basket.  I’m not going to lie, I felt like a genius at this moment.

It’s time to break out the glue gun and get crafty!  I like to line the edges of the opening with ribbon because they can be a bit pokey and I want to re-inforce that edge.

Since this basket is for Jack, I went for a more understated bow.

But you can get as crazy as you like with the ribbon.  For Caroline’s basket above I used purple ribbon and wrapped it all the way around the egg a la the classic sugar egg design.  I hope you have fun with this project!

– Martta

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