Remember Panorama Sugar Eggs? I was always fascinated by them as a kid, actually, I’m still fascinated by them. Here’s a fun Easter project  to try this week with your littles that has an element of the Panorama Sugar Egg, and it’s fun and easy for kids to make.
We used materials and supplies that we had around the house – this is a good way to use up birthday balloons and streamers. Keep in mind that this is a 2-3 day project (to allow for drying time) so plan accordingly. Here’s how we got started:
Paper Mache’ – by definition is layers of paper glued and pressed together, molded when moist to form various articles, and becoming hard and strong when dry. You can use watered down glue, Mod Podge, or cooked/ raw flour and water paste. I prefer the results of a raw flour and water paste – just mix a few tablespoons of flour with about the same amount of water to get a runny consistency of the paste. Then we blew up a balloon and tied a piece of yarn around the knot (for hanging while it’s drying). We used  leftover birthday streamers for the paper, but you can use tissue paper strips, newspaper strips or any type of thinner paper cut into strips. (I chose white streamers so that we wouldn’t need to paint the inside of the egg as an additional step). Dip the paper in the sludge (kids love this part), wipe off the excess between two fingers and place on the balloon. You need to do this quickly, especially if you use streamers because they are thin and tend to break apart. Continue this process until the balloon is completely covered with the paper and mache’. Make sure that you are overlapping – if you do a good job covering everything, you will only need to do one layer.

Here’s our paper mache’ covered balloon hanging from a light fixture to dry.
The next day we popped the balloon and pulled it out.
My oldest chose a light green color to paint the egg, we propped it up on a plastic cup and started to paint. Once she had covered the whole “egg” with paint, we let it dry overnight.
I drew an oval shape on the egg and poked my scissors into the middle of the shape and cut out the oval.
The edges were a bit jaggedy – good thing we wanted to make it sugar egg-esque. We got out some paper  and fabric ribbon, glue gunned (adults only) the ribbons around the opening and the outside to mimic the Panorama Sugar Eggs.
 We experimented with  chicks and bunnies – felt vs. card stock. Card stock won because the felt ones were too much fun to play with. (Simple shapes work best with littles – circles and ovals – dots with permanent marker for eyes and whiskers). You could also just put some marshmallow Peeps and jellybeans in your egg and call it good. We added some a lot of paper Easter grass to the bottom of the egg, placed our spring cuties and stood back to admire our creation. What do you think?
I’ll be linking this up to some of my favorite linky parties this week – check them out!