The day is here, yes this is my eggshell mosaic tutorial... it's been a bit since I've posted a thorough tutorial so I plan to make up for it today. So, for the past few days I've been mentioning saving your eggshells from breakfast. This project works best with eggshells which have been cracked open rather than say a hard boiled egg dyed, although you can definitely use these.
First take about one cup of boiling water and add in one capful of white vinegar. Add your food coloring drops into the water and stir. I like to mix colors for this step because as you will find out the inside of the eggshells usually take the brighter color and the outer shells usually take the darker. Also, the inside of the shells have that membrane on them that adds a sort of pearlescent sheen to the finished product. Here are a few color combinations I've played with:
-Orange - 3 drops red, 6 drops yellow
-Aqua-as in my example- 6drops green, 5 drops blue
- Brown (this turns out with brown on the inside, and a lovely dark rose color on the outside shell) 6drops red, 6 drops yellow, 4 drops blue
Set these on a paper towel to dry thorougly.
Once dry, crush into medium sized pieces.. you'll get the feel for what you like right away.
Next take your gluing medium, I like Mod Podge, but white glue will work just fine as well. I used a foam brush because I like the control of it, but this is really personal preference.
I used a white shadowbox frame but you could use any wooden frame, I also bet this would be a wonderful technique to apply to glass objects like vases or mirrors!!!
Put down a layer of glue and then pick out a few pieces of shell that fit nicely together and lay them down to create the mosaic pattern alternating inside of shell color and outside. Also a quick tip, if you take a larger piece of shell and place it down and apply light pressure the shell will crack into a natural mosaic pattern and you can separate the pieces if you choose.
work section by section until you've covered the entire piece. Set aside and let dry overnight. Apply a sealing coat of medium the next day. Allow to dry another day.
Here is a look at the frame up close once dry.
I now took the stamp set
Benevolent Butterflies and stamped them onto a piece of white cardstock. I then trimmed them out and covered them with glitter. I took one of our Scrapbooking Scrolls ("soaring" in Turquoise) and layered it in with the butterflies. I added a picture of my boys and voila!
I think I may add a rub on sentiment on the outer glass but I have to think on it a bit.
Hope you enjoyed the tutorial, I would LOVE to see what you've created with it! Have a great day!!!
what a beautiful framE! i CAN SEE THIS BEING A UNIQUE AND "WOW" GIFT TO ANYONE. I love the colors and will definately give it a try. TFS
Posted by: lorena | February 12, 2009 at 07:56 AM