Yarn Eggs

I know I did this as a kid, but I forgot about it until Nora's Brownie leader mentioned something about needing liquid starch.

This was probably the messiest project we have ever done. Or, at least, the most time consuming to clean up. But it was fun, and the girls want to make more tomorrow.

We took tiny balloons (I bought water balloons, which can be up to 3" in diameter) and set them on a little piece of wax paper. Then I poured a bunch of plain white glue onto a paper plate and cut each of us a piece of crochet yarn about two yards long. We sort of crumpled the yarn up and covered it in glue, and then wrapped it around and around and around the balloons. When we were satisfied with how they looked, we set them on the wax paper to dry overnight. In the morning, we popped the balloons and pulled them out. And this is what was left. The girls loved the strange crackly sounds the balloons made as they pulled away from the glue and yarn.

It took many strands of yarn to get this effect. It took almost a whole bottle of glue to make 3 eggs. Still-so fun! The messy part was when the glue on our fingers started to dry and became very tacky. Each time I cut a length of yarn for someone, that someone had to peel it off of my fingers. And then we all started peeling glue off of our hands. It looked like our hands were peeling after an ugly sunburn. When we were finally done, it took me five minutes per hand, armed with a washcloth, to scrub the glue off. So five minutes times six hands: that's a long time! I read somewhere you can use sugar water instead, and that sounds less messy, so we may give it a try tomorrow. Oh, and as I alluded in the intro, I think you can use liquid starch, too. So many options!