DIY Easter Tree Ornaments - Jeweled Eggs

Recently I made my my own Easter tree since I had lost my other one during a move. I thought it turned out really cute but after I finished it, I had nothing to decorate it with. I remember that I used to have several cute wooden Easter egg, bunny and chick ornaments but they were all lost along with the tree. So after putting my thinking cap on, I decided to make my own Easter tree ornaments out of polymer clay and rhinestones and I think they came out fabulous! I only used what I had on hand to make these. Unfortunately, I didn't have any bright colors of polymer clay or I would have just used that but I did have silver colored clay and plenty of rhinestones. Besides being a little time consuming, they were extremely easy to make and the finished product was well worth it.

• Polymer clay in any color- One package will make 8 eggs
• Small skewer, wire stem or toothpick
• Rhinestones or Crystals (resin or glass, hotfix or not)
• E600 glue
• cord,ribbon, twine or whatever you want to hang them with

Open the package of polymer clay. You will see that there are lines in it. This makes it easier to break off pieces of it.

Break off a piece at each line. You should have four fairly equal pieces after breaking them off.

Now take each of the four pieces and break them in half which will give you 8 fairly equal pieces of clay. Each of these pieces will be one egg.

Take each piece of the clay and roll it around your hand to help warm it up so you can shape it easier. Once it has warmed up and a bit more pliable, try to shape it like an egg. I made mine into a ball first and then started pressing and rolling with my fingers with a little bit of pressure to transfer the ball into more of an egg shape.

After you have made all the eggs, take the toothpick, wire or skewer and push it into the top of each egg to make holes in them. You can either make a hole just on the top or you can push it all the way through- depending on what you will be using to hang them with. I actually pushed mine all the way through but ended up only using the top hole. Whichever way you decide to do it, make sure to have the hole just wide enough to fit your twine, cord or whatever you are going to use to hang the eggs with.

After the holes are done, bake your clay according to the manufactures instructions and them let them cool completely.

Now it is time to cut 8 pieces of string, twine or whatever you want to hang your eggs with. I cut each piece about 5 inches and then trimmed as necessary. They ended up hanging about 1.5 to 2 inches from the branch of the tree. It really doesn't matter, it's up to your according to how long you want them to hang.

You can either wait until the last step to glue the pieces in or you can do it now. I did a few of them before and after gluing the rhinestones on the eggs and I found it easier to do it before. The way you do it is, put a glob of glue on the end of the toothpick, skewer, wire or whatever you used to poke the holes in your eggs and then take that and push it down into the hole. Make sure you push all the glue down into the hole and then push each side of the string into the hole.

Sit the eggs aside for a bit to let the glue set. If you are using the E6000, you will only have to wait about 15 minutes or so.

Get an egg and start putting rhinestones or crystals on it. Since my rhinestones were hotfix, I used a hotfix tool to adhere mine. You can do the same or if your crystals do not have glue on the backs you can use the E6000 to adhere them. Glue them on as neatly as possible. I placed them row by row going around the eggs horizontally rather than vertically. The E6000 glue works super well and applying a very small dot will be sufficient.

Once you have them all covered, viola!! You have some nice, blingy Easter egg ornaments for your Easter tree.

TIP #1--When I apply rhinestones without glue on the backs, I use E6000 glue and a skewer stick. I put an extremely thin line of glue for about two inches (because it drys so fast) for the row of rhinestones I'm gluing and then I'll dab the very tip of the skewer with just a tiny bit of glue. Then I just pick up the rhinestone by touching the skewer to the top of the crystal and sit it right down into the line of glue. It truly works and it makes placing the rhinestones go a lot quicker.

TIP #2-- If you only have clear rhinestones or crystals, you can change the color of the rhinestones by using permanent markers or alcohol inks. That is what I had to end up doing with this project because I had limited pink and iridescent rhinestones but tons of clear ones. It's easiest to color them after they have been glued on.

Embellishment Idea- To embellish your eggs even more, you can add bows on the top of the eggs tied around the strings they are hanging from!

Thank you for dropping by to learn how to make these blingy Easter eggs to decorate your Easter tree with. Happy Easter!!!