Easter Fun 2014

I haven't been home much. After a recent trip, I came back for about a week before I began my annual work session. Since I was once again living in a hotel, this time for two weeks, I had to find some way to entertain myself. I no longer felt the need to go into the city or to an event. Old age and exhaustion in the evening seem to have curtailed my gallivanting.

I recently dreamed up the idea to have an Easter egg hunt for my adult children. After all, who doesn't love to relive their childhood with a little fun? While strolling through and enjoying the dollar store, I had an idea. I would spend my Holiday Inn evenings making a papier-mâché  head of each of the "kids".

Styrofoam balls seemed like an easier choice than balloons for the base, although they didn't totally replicate the head shapes of everyone. On the other hand, if you want to make these using balloons, you could use these as Easter baskets and fill the heads with Easter goodies...slightly creepy. I didn't have enough time to put that many layers of papier-mâché on balloons. 

So I sat. Evenings were spent in the hotel room creating heads with papier-mâché while watching baseball. I wondered about the potential reaction of the housekeeping staff upon discovering these in the room, but figured at this point, they'd pretty much seen it all. 

 I inserted doweling in the bottom of each styro ball in order to make it easier to hold while working. I also used sponge and other smaller styrofoam bits and glued them for ears and noses. It was pretty easy. I had brought a flour salt mixture from home and only needed to add water. The hotel supplied a daily newspaper. I covered each ball with one layer of newspaper in very small strips and when dry, one layer of white paper (one sheet, liberated from the hotel printer)

Inserting the doweling into an empty wine bottle was a good way to get the heads dried evenly. It is essential to drink wine prior to, and during this activity in order to have an empty bottles.

For  hair and eyes I relied on my craft bin and costume collections. Most things however, are available from the dollar store including paint. I found the mouths to be challenging. I had no idea how to create these and my heads were mouthless until I was back home.

My son's head was most difficult since he has some unusual piercings and ear holes. An earring through the nose and magnets to represent his ear plugs looked ok. Since I haven't seen him without a cap in eons, I also created a hat for him. His girlfriend had purple and black hair last time I saw her. I was in luck on that one with an old purple wig. (Unfortunately, she sported green hair this weekend...too bad). I decided to print their mouths from a photo and glue them on. It worked.














So those were the finished heads. What did I do with them you ask?  I used them as the beginning of an Easter egg hunt.

At the dinner table, each person had a small treat box. After dessert, they opened the box. There were goodies and a slip of paper saying, "Find the head that represents you and there you'll see your very first clue."

Each subsequent rhyming clue lead them around the house where they located things like candy, eggs, toys and a gift card. In order to avoid disputes, they each had their own clues and colour of baskets with gifts. The last clue asked them to find a golden egg for an additional treat. The whole thing was quite a big hit, although the most fun of all was the laughter when they first laid eyes on the heads.