Happy Easter Engagement

As some of you know, I have been missing in action alot...(actually too much for my taste). I have been doing some big projects and would like to show you one today...My co-workers son was planning on getting engaged on Easter morning/afternoon. He and his girlfriend had come from the Chicago, IL area for the weekend and they spent Easter with my co-worker and her family. Well my co-workers son had called her a few weeks ago and told her about his plan....he had ordered white Nike tennis shoes and had her initials and her new married name embroidered on the back of them. (She wanted to wear white tennis shoes when she got married), my co-workers challenge was to find an egg to put them in....well the shoes were a size 8 ½ and had a small heel on them...she was having a hard time finding an egg big enough and came into my office and asked if I knew of anyplace she could purchase an egg to fit the shoes....Well, hmmmmm.....no...was my answer but I did offer to make a string egg for her...after all...I could make it rather big right??...or so I thought. I went to the local party store thinking I could get a balloon 16" or so....nope....12" was the biggest the next biggest was way more than 16" I believe it was a more like 24-36" ROUND....not an egg shape at all and 4.99 for one balloon not filled...well I purchased 2-12" balloons and one of the big ones to see if maybe my granddaughter and I could find a way to make it work...what a comedy.....I blew up the big balloon and tried to put rice in the bottom to weigh it down and make it take on more of an egg shape...IMPORTANT NEWS....do not blow up the balloon before inserting rice as you will have a "rice shower" and then a giggling match...(my granddaughter and I found that out first hand). After cleaning up the floor and re-doing the balloon we were on a roll....problem....the balloon was too big for me to reach around....sigh...so hubby rigged it up to my hanging light in the kitchen....meanwhile my grand daughter was blowing up the 12" balloon and letting it fly all over the house...hmmm....that looks like it might fit the shoes....so we measured...sure enough it was a definite possibility...down came the HUGE balloon with partial string hanging on it...into the garbage it went and off I went to work on the 12" balloon.....wow...much better. I put a roll of crochet string (dark purple like the stitching on the shoes), into fabric stiffening glue and started to wrap away....

This is what it looked like...I still wasn't pleased with how solid the egg was so I bought some fabric stiffener spray and sprayed it 3 more times to be sure...(the egg was going to be filled with heavy shoes and sit outside, I surely didn't want it to collapse....). Once this dried the fun began. I purchased some white flowers, rhinestones, white ribbon, iridescent grass and got to work...

Once I made the first cut and tried to get the shoes in....well lets just say I was praying I wouldn't have to re-do it...lol...I made the opening a tad bit bigger...inserted the shoes...knew they fit and finished decorating...for the base of the egg, I purchased a small plastic bowl at the $1.00 store and glued white lace on it to mimic a veil (you can't see this too well)...all in all it turned out ok...my co-worker was floored when she saw it as was the rest of her family....her daughter-in-law to be was surprised beyond words and did say "yes"..she also loved the egg...she came to my work to thank me and show me her beautiful diamond...fun, fun, fun....

I was honored to help make their day a bit more fun...

Thanks for stopping by...
Until next time,
Hugs,
Carol