Ashblue, a fabulous locally-owned gift shop here in Nashville, sent me a postcard week before last inviting me to check out their annual egg decorating party (thanks, Mary-Michael & Marrah!). But this event far-exceeded the typical egg-dying party for three reasons:

1) the blank canvasses we were handed were OSTRICH eggs
2) the decorating supplies went way beyond the usual dyes and stickers
3) Faith Hill and her daughter were there bedazzling with us!

My mom, mother-in-law and I all attended last Saturday afternoon. We thought we would spend an hour or so … but two and a half hours later we were finally paying our bill and walking out with our prized creations. There were young kids, older kids (some who were serious artists and really making some amazing things), and adult kids like us. All were having an excellent time.

I made this which I was really quite pleased with …

Rubber bands created the curved lines in the center when stretched around a naked egg. I used blue painters tape to tape off the ends while I dyed the center pink. After a trip under the hairdryer and removal of the tape and rubber bands, I found that some of the pink had seeped though to the ends. Although it wasn’t what I was going for, I decided to embrace the marbleized look and I taped off the entire pink center band and used highly-concentrated dye and a paintbrush to accentuate my previous “mistakes”. After some more time under the hair dryer I decided to go a little glam and I added the gold paint and jewels.

My mother in law, Karen, made this …

Since she was flying back to Savannah after her Nashville visit, she assumed that the ostrich egg would not make the trip so she dedicated it to my husband and I with a monogram.  The monogram and fun pattern on the back were made with crayon.  Here’s the back:

Then she dyed the whole egg in yellow. Next she added some clear glitter that makes the monogram look almost frosted. Then she glued all of those cool little flat, glass pellets into each circle on her crayon’d pattern. Pretty cute huh?

My mom made one too but I don’t have any pics. In bright greens, pinks, and yellows, we decided it was Lily Pulitzer inspired. She’s using it as the centerpiece of her breakfast room table for the Easter season.

I think these are both going to be heirlooms someday. Can’t you just hear future generations fighting over the ostrich eggs that grandma and the great-grandmas painted??

I have NO idea how you might source your own ostrich egg if you wanted to replicate this project for yourself. But Nashvillians, if you are interested, Ashblue has offered this fun activity for the last 5 years. It’s $32 per egg and it’s a ball. You need to reserve your egg in advance … but don’t worry, I’ll remind you next year. And even though Easter is over for 2010, you should run on into Ashblue anyway because they have some great looking stuff. My favorite is probably the DIY succulent gardens … so cute. Get on over there and hoping you and yours had an eggcelent Easter!!