Yesterday I shared my egg-painted-with-marker idea. Today, the craft is a little more complicated. It isn’t hard to make, but it is a bit more time-consuming. Most of the time is spent making the template, but it is totally worth doing a good, careful job. The pictures don’t do it justice, though-the results are beautiful! I wish my camera captured the glistening gold in the Paper a little better.

Washi Paper Gourd

you need:

A small egg-shaped gourd. Alternately, you can use a hen egg or a wooden egg. Just make sure you clean, sand, or do whatever it is you need to do to prepare them accordingly.

Washi origami paper or another paper that has a pattern you like. I used Washi because it is strong and flexible, and molds easily to the shape of the gourd without too many wrinkles. You should not need more than a 6″ square per egg.

Perfect Paper Adhesive glue, or another brand that you like. Make sure that it is a quality that isn’t going to yellow over time.

Ribbons and other decorations for the finished product.

1) carefully measure around the widest part of your egg’s circumference. then measure the height, from the very center of the top of the egg to the very center of the bottom. Be sure to add a little bit to each measurement to make sure you don’t accidentally come out short! you can always trim it later if you need to.

Draw each of these measurements onto a piece of plain paper. you should have something like this:

(the long horizontal line represents the circumference measurement. the vertical line is the height from top to bottom)

2) mark every 1/4″ or so along the circumference line, as I have begun to do above.

3) after you have marked every half-inch for the entirety of the line, begin to draw vertical lines at each marking. this will be where you will cut. you should end up with something that looks like this:

using a ruler is recommended. I didn’t. sorry it’s sloppy. However, i doubt a few crooked lines will matter all that much. I also didn’t finish drawing the entire template for this tutorial, but I hope this is enough to give you the idea of how to continue along the entire length of the line. I imagine this entire process is pretty self-explanatory, but please let me know if you’re confused.

4) begin cutting.

Here, I’ve tried to show where to cut. the solid horizontal line in the middle is the same horizontal line that goes around the circumference. the small dotted lines on each side of it are the lines to which you cut, but don’t cut past them! stop cutting about 1/4″ of each side of the circumference line so you have a solid band 1/2″ wide through the center of your template.

And yes, I did taper the ends. This is to avoid having too much paper overlapping and getting messy at the top and bottom of the egg. You may want to trim the ends as you go to keep it from getting too thick and bunched up with overlapping paper. You want it to lay as smooth as possible!

5) now that you have a template, simply trace it onto the paper you want to use, and cut it out exactly the same.

6) make a little line of glue right along the center circumference line of the paper. attach it around the widest part of the egg, exactly where you measured it in step one. make sure the paper is smooth, and hold it there until its dry. It should now look like the egg has a little fence surrounding the top and the bottom.

7) gently fold the “fence posts” down one at a time and glue them, making sure each is neat and smooth. trim as you need.

8)let the glue dry, then seal with a clear craft glaze to finish.

9) if you wish, drill a hole through the egg and thread a ribbon through to hang. Tie in a bow at the bottom as I did, or add some pretty beads and charms for a unique touch!

and there you have it–beautiful gourd/paper ornaments. Let me if this tutorial was clear, it’s my first one and I’m still practicing a little bit. I wish I’d thought to take pictures as I went along, rather than hastily trying to make up a new template afterwards.

pardon my learning! and Happy crafting!