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Five Ducks Hatch
During Eastertime, I emptied out duck eggs, [attempted to] marbelize them, and then put little notes inside of them in the spirit of Easter Sunday the following day.
I took the five duck eggs over to the Idea Hatchery in Nashville and placed them in various spots for people to find.
This project was challenging almost all the way through. But once it was over and the eggs were placed, I felt so happy with how it turned out.
See below for a little video and details for each part...
Part One: Gathering the Eggs
Finding duck eggs was surprisingly difficult. Luckily, I was able to find them through online research of farmers markets that sold duck eggs. Wedge Oak Farm at the Richland Farmers Market was the winner! (This farmers market is actually one I frequent most Saturdays to visit Lizzie and Jesse of Sugar Camp Farm.)
I ordered a dozen even though I only needed five just in case some broke in the process of trying to make them, and also so I could try some duck eggs! The eggs themselves had such a beautiful texture, especially when held to the light.
Part Two: Emptying the egg
Once I had the eggs, the next part was emptying them out. This was definitely the hardest and scariest part. It made me grateful that I got the dozen because a lot of them broke while we were trying to empty them.
I used this tutorial thinking it would be pretty simple. Essentially, you make two holes in the egg and blow through one hole so it would drain through the other side. I am so grateful my friend had a syringe. It would have probably taken a week to drain the eggs, and it didn't seem like blowing through the hole was having any effect.
Using a syringe, we made the hole wider (which was better anyhow to stick paper through) and just kept sucking the egg white and yolk through the hole and out with the syringe. We still had to use some patience and not go too fast or force the opening too much or else it would crack.
Part Three: Marbelizing the eggs
This part required a container, some nail polish, and the uncracked eggs. I also got a piece of styrofoam and pins which allowed the eggs to dry after without getting any weird marks on the dyed eggs. In addition to this tutorial I used, I also added some fake tattoo details I had after the eggs dried.
Experimenting with a couple different nail polish colors, I found the darker hues, especially the dark blue, to turn out best. The lighter colors were hard to see on the egg.
The nail polish was an interesting medium to work with and became almost hard when put in the water so that it wrapped onto the eggs. It took me awhile to get the hang of it, but became mesmerizing by the last egg.
Part Four: Adding in the note
This was definitely the easiest part. I cut some blue pieces of paper, and tried to think of something Easter-related that might make someone think about what they're grateful for, and pass that action onto someone else. I wrote "Happy Easter! YOU are so LOVED," on one side and "What can you do to make someone else feel loved?" on the other side with the hashtag #fiveduckshatch in hopes they might share it to inspire others to do the same.
Then, I wrapped it up as small as I could and stuck it into the egg.
Part Five: Hiding the eggs
I've always loved the Idea Hatchery — it's a collective of local artists and retail stores — and it fit perfectly with my egg theme. So I drove over and wandered around to find fun places to put the eggs...
