Easter Clay Eggs Attempt

First off, Happy Easter to all! I hope everyone enjoyed their Easter. Me and my husband had a nice day with each other and our friends!

Since this is my first Easter as a vegan, I decided to try one of the suggestions PETA has on their website for a cruelty-free Easter. It just makes sense since I don't even eat eggs, why would I buy eggs just to dye them? My friend did invite us over to help them dye eggs and for an Easter dinner. I figured this should be my last Easter dying real eggs. So this was my way of saying goodbye to that memory and trying to start a new one.

Back to what PETA suggests, they have a few options. Here is a link to what they suggest to try instead of using real eggs...

http://www.peta.org/feat/easter/egg.html

I decided to try number 1, which is the clay eggs. All I had to do was make the clay, let it cool, shape it into an egg, and then paint them afterwards. Here is how my attempt went...

No-Bake Clay Recipe:

1 cup cornstarch
1 and 1/4 cups cold water
2 cups baking soda
Food coloring, if desired
Paint, if desired

Directions:

Put the cornstarch, water, and baking soda in a saucepan and stir over medium heat for about 4 minutes. The mixture should be the consistency of moist mashed potatoes. Add food coloring if desired. Remove from heat, turn out onto a plate, and cover with a damp cloth. Allow the mixture to cool. When the clay is cool, knead it like dough. You can then store it in an airtight container or make the clay into egg-like shapes and allow them to dry. When dry, the eggs are ready to be painted.

Here is my pot with the cornstarch, water, and baking soda mixture.

You can tell here the mixture was beginning to get nice and lumpy.

Looks just like mashed potatoes! I noticed it took a lot longer than 4 minutes for it to get to this consistency though. But I suppose it varies from stove top to stove top.

Here is the clay all done and ready to cool. I would say it took about 20 minutes for it to cool.

Here are my clay eggs, molded and ready to dry. Don't make fun of my horrible shaping! My husband molded 2 himself and here are my 6.

Here is where I get a little sad. We molded the eggs, then had to be over at our friend's place at 2pm. We got home at about 9:30pm and here is what I saw...

I'm a little disappointed that they were all cracked, and when I picked one up, I could feel the inside was still "wet" and not fully dry. We left them out for a good 7 hours. If we had children, I cannot imagine replacing dying real eggs to using these clay eggs.

I thought about it and it could be I made the eggs too big. But I still think that regardless they would have cracked when drying.

I think next Easter, the paper-mache eggs may work better. I just wanted to share my experience with the clay eggs. I am happy I tried it and we had a lot of fun making them! Maybe in the morning they will be fully dry and I can try to paint them. If not that's okay.

HAPPY EASTER!