Easter Basket & Eggs with Fusion Mineral Paint, IOD Moulded, and Finnabair Waxes!

Iron Orchid Designs and Fusion Easter Egg

This super cute Easter Egg project is fun to make and easy, using various Iron Orchid Designs Moulds, Fusion Mineral Paint, Fusion Glaze, and finished with Art Alchemy waxes by Finnabair.

1. To complete this project, you will need:

• Eggs... these can be any size and can be Styrofoam, paper, or plastic (if your eggs have a shiny finish to begin you may want to put a coat of Fusion’s Ultra Grip on first). The plastic eggs I used were a ping pong ball type plastic with a flat finish made for painting and purchased from Michaels.
• Iron Orchid Designs Moulds. I used the following IOD Moulds:
• Trimmings 1
• Trimmings 2
• Fleur-de-lis
• Classic Elements
• Laurel
• But, other IOD moulds would be great to use, too! Such as:
• Birdsong
• Monarch
• Acanthus Scroll
• He Loves Me
• Iron Orchid Designs Air Dry Clay.
• Fusion Mineral Paint (I used Bedford, but any neutral will do)
• Fusion Clear Glaze (Ash Fusion Mineral Paint mixed with Glaze, any dark brown, gray or black will do)
• Tite-bond Quick and Thick glue
• Painter’s Tape
• Art Alchemy Waxes by Finnabair, in various colors (used in photo are Heather Hills, Electric Violet, Peacock, Amethyst Magic, Lucky Emerald)
• A basket
• Moss for the basket liner
• Ribbon
• Cornstarch

2.  Decide the size and number of eggs you want to compliment the size of your basket. Use appropriately sized moulds for the size egg you are working on.

3. Create your moulds using the Iron Orchid Designs Air Dry Clay and Iron Orchid Designs Moulds.  Always do a light dusting of corn starch in the mould before pressing the Iron Orchid Designs Air Dry Clay in and it will release easily.

4. I glued my moulds as I went, but if you want to make a few and then glue them, that works too! I used Tite-bond Quick and Thick to adhere the wet moulds to the eggs. Make sure you lightly press all the edges down and gently mold the clay to be flush with the surface of the egg. Use painter’s tape to keep your mould from sliding. If you want moulds on your basket, place and glue those as well.

5. Let your moulded eggs and basket dry overnight. (you can paint the moulds when they are wet but you will lose some of the detail of the moulding).

 6. As the clay dries it shrinks slightly and you may have small cracks appear and areas that pull away from the egg or basket. This is expected and you may leave it or you may choose to fill in the areas with a tiny bit of Air Dry Clay, depending on your preference. The cracks give it more of a vintage aged look and add to the charm!

7. Now you are ready to paint your eggs (and basket if you like). You can paint them any color but for this project I chose Fusion Mineral Paint in Bedford because it’s a good neutral that’s easy to get a “grungy vintage” look. You don’t have to worry about brush marks or perfect painting, it doesn’t matter at all for this project. Let the paint dry overnight before glazing.

8. Fusion Mineral Paint Glaze has a long open time (stays wet for a long time), this gives you time to wipe the glaze back to get the coverage you want on a project. For this project, I painted the glaze on all the eggs and basket and waited about 5 minutes before wiping the glaze back. The more glaze you leave the longer it will take to dry. I wiped most of the glaze away leaving it mostly in crevices to bring out the detail of the moulds. Let dry overnight.

9. You actually could stop here if you wanted, because…let’s face it…..your eggs are already gorgeous! However, the next step is where the magic happens!

10. Choose your colors and start adding your wax to your eggs and basket. I usually apply the wax with my fingertips. You will be “finger painting” with the wax. If I want to get down in crevices or next to a moulding, I use a chip brush with the ends clipped to make a stiff small wax brush. If you need to “erase” something, just apply a bit of clear wax to a cloth to remove the unwanted area. You may use light wax colors to highlight raised areas for even more depth and detail.

 It really is that easy!  Have a Happy Easter!  ~Vonda