I'm a wife, stay-at-home mom, crafter, and blogger living in rural New England. As seen in Martha Stewart Living, Food Network Magazine, and more! | Tutorials, DIY, crafts, parenting tips, recipes, money saving tips, product reviews, local product features, New England living, intentional living, and more! |
A few months ago, Food Network Magazine emailed me and asked if I'd be interested in designing a New Hampshire-themed egg for their Easter issue! I was completely blown away and honored for the opportunity. My New Hampshire egg design was a gold-dipped, faux birch bark egg - gold-dipped to represent our State House with it's golden dome, and the birch bark paint finish to represent our our state tree, the white birch. Fun Fact: My great-grandfather was a steeplejack and did the gold leaf on the New Hampshire capitol dome back in the 1920's! | This post contains affiliate links |
Creating one of these gold-dipped birch eggs for yourself is pretty simple! Here's the full how-to:
Materials:
faux egg (for the Food Network Magazine example and most of the photos in this how-to, I used an Eggnot, a fake ceramic egg - but you could also use a wooden egg. If you use real hardboiled eggs I would not recommend eating them after painting)
white acrylic paint (if your fake egg isn't already white to begin with)
paper cup
thin paintbrush
tinfoil to make a stand for the egg to dry on
How-to:
1. First, make a tinfoil ring to hold your egg while it dries between steps. Then if your egg isn't already white, paint white and allow to dry between coats. It may need several coats of paint.
2. Next shake the gold acrylic paint well and pour about half an inch of it into a small paper cup. Dip the top of the egg carefully into the cup. (I found it best to to do the gold-dip first, then paint the bark pattern after since sometimes the black lines were visible under the gold-dip.) Gold paint tends to be thick and you may have some swirling or thick drips after dipping. You can try to smooth these out a bit with a paintbrush but it usually looks cleaner if you just leave it as-is, even if you end up with a thick spot within the dip. After the gold dip, carefully place the egg in the tinfoil ring to dry.
3. Once the gold-dip is dry, use a thin paint brush to paint horizontal black lines on the egg, all the way around. Vary the placement and thickness of the lines a bit to mimic the look of birch bark. You may have to carefully hold the egg for a few minutes to let it air dry a bit before carefully setting it, gold top down, into the tinfoil ring to finish drying.
And that's it! While making them can be tedious with the drying time between steps, it's really quite easy. And in the event you don't feel like tackling this project yourself, I have a limited supply of painted Wooden Gold-Dipped Birch Eggs in my Etsy Shop!
Incredibly honored and excited to say that I designed and painted the New Hampshire egg for the latest issue of Food Network Magazine! I was completely blown away when they sent me an email last November, asking if I wanted to be a contributor for this piece (um, YES!) and it’s so exciting to finally see it in print! Thank you, Food Network Magazine!
If you want to make your own NH-inspired egg, please check out my full tutorial HERE.
PS - Make sure to pick up a copy, so many creative eggs from every state - not to mention all the yummy recipes!
So honored to be included in New Hampshire Magazine's Yankee Swap Gift Guide this year! If you're looking for a locally-made, affordable gift to bring to a party this list has you covered. Be sure to check out all the other great NH makers and products they rounded up too and remember to shop small this season.
Correction: There is a misprint in NH Magazine's writeup. While I have in fact been featured in Martha Stewart Living Magazine, I haven't been featured in Yankee Magazine (yet anyways - hopefully someday soon though!). :)
Lisa Valinsky just put together a great list of The Healthy Snacks that 24 Influencers are Eating Right Now and it includes a snack from yours truly that's BIG in our house - in fact I think it currently makes up at least 25% of our toddler's diet (oops).
So if you're looking for some great healthy snack ideas - definitely check it out! You're sure to recognize some great bloggers on there too :)
I was recently interviewed by Lori over at B. Gatsby Blogs to talk a little bit about Birch Landing Home and being a mamapreneur. Check out her post here to see the full interview and while you're visiting her blog make sure to check out other interviews from fellow mom bosses!
Wendy from Life on the Shady Grove will be sharing her Christmas home tour and hosting a HUGE series of giveaways in December featuring 32 crafters, including Birch Landing Home! She's just posted a little introduction to some of the participantson her blog so you can get a preview of some of the makers and items involved.
I can't wait to see how she styles our hand-etched ornaments in her home and I'm looking forward to sending the lucky winner their own set of ornaments to use this Christmas!
Don't worry, I'll let you know when Wendy's gorgeous home tour is up on her blog and when her 12 Days of Christmas Giveaways begin! But in the meantime, don't forget to follow her on Instagram (@lifeontheshadygrove) so you don't miss another inspiring home decor post.
