Egging Hints 3



Question.....
I done a goose egg that I marbleized and then top coated it with clear coat spray and now it has bubbled up all over and I don't want to discard the egg. What can I do to renew the finish?

From Maureen The first thing that comes to mind is that the spray you used has had an adverse reaction to the paint you used to marble the egg. If you use two spirit based products you will have this problem.

One way to overcome the problem (I realise this is now probably too late in your case) is to apply two or three coats of WATERBASED sealer BEFORE you spray with your finish coat.When using two different products ALWAYS test them on a piece of scrap shell first. The other thing that might have happened is that the marbling wasn't completely dry before you sprayed it. You might have to put this down to experience, scrub the egg back and start again.

From Peggy

The cleansing bleach/rinsing should be done to all eggs before decorating them - carved or beaded - to kill germs and viruses etc. There are some viruses from birds that can transfer to humans and also humans to birds, so to cover all bases, I bleach them. When you buy from a dealer, this process should already have taken place.

 If your carved egg has no paint on it,  you fill the (large yogurt) container with bleach and gently place the egg on a spoon and slowly submerge.  I then rock the egg gentle between 2 spoons and can see the white mist of calcium drifting off the egg.  Dip it out occasionally to check it till it's clean 5 - 20 mins.  If you have some teeny tiny areas, you may not be able to leave it in too long as those areas will start to fade.

 Dip in clear water container to cleanse, don't let the tap run on it or bits of carving may snap under the waterfall pressure.  Then another container with baking soda in it for 10 mins to neutralize the bleach and hang to dry.

From Peggy
Every egg has to be bleached to kill impurities from the birds, barnyard etc and to eat away the membrane inside which when dried out
1) shrinks and can pull your carved design inwards and cause cracking/breaks
2) ugly colour showing through open areas of design- as it dries out the membrane gets darker
3) and bleaching removes stains etc
 Also when you carve/drill it leaves the edges rough and tiny bits of egg shell and membrane showing and the bleach will eat that away and leave your edges clear, clean and softer in appearance.

 So now that you have bleaching 101 under your belt -- go for it.  Wear safety glasses and apron and old t-shirt so if you splash bleach you won't care about your new shirt like I did.  It is now my bleaching shirt to remind me not to be such a twit!!

Blow out egg, rinse 3 times with water, fill, shake and empty. fill with bleach and let it sink in the container (large yogurt container size for ducks, chicken and goose and Emu will do,) covering the outside with bleach and let sit.  Be sure that the blow hole gets to the top so bubbles can get out or you'll have an area where there is air and membrane doesn't dissolve. 

 About 10 mins for chicken, 15 - 30 mins for a goose egg, ---check it. Longer for Emu and Ostrich but 1/2 hr to start with. Solutions will also clean the pores in the Ostrich eggs.

 Rinse X 2 again with clear water. Fill with baking soda water (deactivates, neutralizes the bleach) . Rinse again. Hang to Dry overnight.

 Do art/carving or what ever. If you are making jewelry boxes, in other words-- putting lining into the eggs-- you can leave what is left of the membrane for strength because it is clean, but use an Xacto knife to scrape away where the hinge will go so the glue will bond to shell and not membrane or it will peel off.

 When bleaching Emu eggs, I don't want the bleach to harm the outside green colour so I fill the insides with bleach and the outside container with water. After you carve Emu and get down to the white and open holes etc you can't leave it in the bleach too long or it will eat away the weaker white area so I do my bleaching first. and a quick rinse after.

  From David
I wipe the inside of the egg with a fragrant oil of your choice before you line them I've collected about 20 different fragrant oils my display cabinet smells really nice when you open the door.


From Jean
We once used GE silicone caulk to set the ship in the egg and create the effect of waves. We also added a little food coloring to it (the paste kind). Although we used the white silicone, I think the clear silicone dyed with some sea-green food coloring would give a better effect. You can use a toothpick to both mount the ship in place and also as a tool to pull little waves out of the silicone.

From Marg
When doing an outdoor show with eggs....invest in a tent and preferably one with sides on it. EZ Up has some really good tents and they are really pretty quick and easy to put up and take down and not terribly expensive. Your eggs won't last long in the sun. Only a few minutes in the direct sun on these hot summer days and they can really heat up quickly. I always set my table back a bit under the tent so they aren't ever in the direct sunlight.

The weather up there was beautiful for the most part but we had heavy winds every afternoon. One of the vendors didn't weight down his tent properly and it had blown apart during the night. Not only was his tent and lots of his merchandise ruined but also his neighbor's tent and merchandise had heavy damage too when everything blew down on it.

We couldn't use stakes to stake the tents down because of the watering system in the park but used weights to hold the tent down. An inexpensive weight system is empty gallon milk jugs with sand or water in them and some nylon cord that you can get at any discount or hardware store. Having sides on your tent keeps your eggs from changing zip codes when those sudden breezes blow up.

At night, we always pack the eggs back up along with any shelving and breakables. Security at this park was good but in the event that our tent had blown around, we wouldn't have had any damage to the eggs. It does take extra time to pack them up at night but not nearly the time it took to paint them. Outdoor shows take a bit more planning but they're are alot of fun and well worth the extra effort.

From Kanda
I watched Carol Duvall's show today and she had a neat ideal about cross stitch painting done with window screens. So I thought that if I could make a stencil that would wrap around my egg and then use the screen stenciling technique. that she use it would be great. I finally found the perfect plastic for the stencil template that could be molded around the egg. I used a non slip blank quilters template plastic cut a small oval and then added small hearts and stars. Cut them out with an exacto knife and cut small slices around the outside of the oval and heated it with a heat gun and it started to mold to the egg. I then used a cloth and held the plastic to the egg while it cooled off and it held it's shape perfect. I had to share this with you. I got so excited that I done 3 egg in blue and used rubber stamping embossing ink. and then put the embossing powder on the egg.




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