How to make illuminated Easter eggs

I'm kind of in love with those little battery operated tea lights. I used them to make illuminated large crystal Easter eggs featured over at Craftside. I made this set with smaller plaster Easter eggs that have a glitter surface.

I decorated the base of the tea light with a strip of washi tape.

 I tried several different ways to drill the hole in the bottom of the plastic egg. I cracked a few. The best way I found was to use a cone shaped sanding bit on my Dremel.

I used a bit of hot glue to attache the eggs to the tea lights so they would stand straight up.

How to make a double loop bead bail for a side drilled hole bead

I have had these beautiful sick green colored beads for so long but couldn't figure out how to make a pair of earrings with them because the holes in them went sideways and I don't really like wire wrapping. Well, I finally figured out a way to hang them and I thought I'd share it with you.

Here are some of my first attempts that I didn't like.

1. I tried to use a giant jump ring, I couldn't make it symmetrical and I chipped a bead doing it.
2. I tried the wire wrapping but just convinced myself I didn't like it.
3. I tried a loop on each end and thought maybe I would hang a chain but still thought that would be too big/fancy.
4. My success!

Here is how I made what I am calling a double loop bead bail.

I threaded a piece of wire through the bead.

Then I bent the wire around the top of the bead and bent the two ends up to run next to each other.

 Then I slid a small white bead over both wires and bent them out in opposite directions.
I then formed loops with both wires so that they aligned next to each other.

 I trimmed each wire loop so that it wrapped around twice.
All that was left to do was link them onto the earring wires.

For more great jewelry making inspiration check out one of my all time favorite inspiration books

1000 Jewelry Inspirations
by
Sandra Salamony

A visual catalog for jewelry, bead artists, and crafters for hundreds of ideas at their fingertips to inspire their own projects.

1,000 Jewelry Inspirations is a stunning showcase of contemporary jewelry pieces that will feed the creative appetites of crafters and jewelry makers everywhere. Become inspired by this feast of color, sparkle, texture, dimension, and clever, creative use of materials. From simple and elegant to beautiful and elaborate “bling”styles, over 1,000 full-color images will be at your fingertips to inspire your own creative projects. An exploration of jewelry-making techniques will help even inexperienced jewelry makers on their way to making beautiful jewelry.

What you’ll find:

Beads and Baubles

Paper and Mixed Media

Polymer and Precious Metal Clay

Vintage and Repurposed

Fibers and Fabric

Wire and Metal

How to make a bunny bookmark with an Annie's Macaroni and cheese box

This is just a cute and simple fun way to make a recycled bunny bookmark with the tab from the box of Annie's Macaroni and cheese. These could be a cute Easter project to use in a bunny story book.

Simply cut the side tab out along the corners of the box. Then very carefully with an x-acto knife cut the perforated lines on the box. Yup, that simple. And as you can see the little bunny ears stick out above the top edge of the book and look so cute!

 I will be making some projects from this super cute The Paper Hat Book: Super Hats for Super Kids book that include a lot of recycled materials like food boxes and pother pretty packaging.


Hats are pure fun and the perfect item to cap off any costume or ensemble. The right headgear ensures complete transformation, especially on the head of an imaginative child.

The Paper Hat Book offers creative families 20 fantastic paper hats, all of which can be created quickly and easily from readily accessible papers: shopping bags, newspapers, comics, recycled story books, magazines, packaging scraps, and junk mail!

Artist and designer Alyn Carlson creates hats that are perfect for birthday parties, playdates, costumes, and everyday dress up. Each hat can be styled to perfectly suit the wearer by merely selecting the right paper and colors. The hat themes range from Floral Flappers to Viking Warriors, and from superheroes and pirates to beautiful butterfly hats.

Alyn Carlson is an artist, designer, stylist and part time chicken rancher living in a converted church who believes in setting the table for the muse. Always in search of the line, font, pattern, seed, flavor, musical note to be placed at the right time in the right place. As a paper artist, her extraordinary hats, suitable for children and adults for a garden party, whimsical wedding, a paper-lover's birthday party or just-because, have been featured in countless blogs and in the current issue of Uppercase Magazine. Alyn is also featured in the best selling Design Sponge book.