13 Day of Halloween Ornaments | Spooky Egg Shell Dioramas

 It’s day 4 of 13 days of Halloween ornaments. Today’s ornament comes from my backyard chickens and my childhood!

When I was little, my mom had some of these egg shell ornaments that she made in the 70’s. I always loved the tiny things inside the fragile shell. She was always an amazing artist and she’d paint beautiful scenes inside with a tiny bush. I thought they were absolutely magical. 

One year, she taught my little sister and I how to blow out the inside of an egg shell and made our own. I loved setting up my own little scene and being trusted to paint the fragile shells myself. We stored our ornaments in foam egg cartons to protect them and I still do that with mine today. 

For this tutorial, you will need:

Eggs

Acrylic paint and tiny brush

A pin or needle, craft knife and a bamboo skewer

Small pointy scissors such as nail scissors or embroidery scissors

String for the hanger

Small trim for around the outside edge of the shell

Some little figurines or other miniatures to go inside or you can paint a scene of your own

Using the pin, poke a hole into the top of the egg shell. Keep the egg in a bowl while you work, in case it breaks. Use the pin to try to flake off a little bit of the shell to make a hole big enough to fit the skewer. You can also use the blade of a craft knife to do this. I twisted my knife while applying gentle pressure to try to drill out the shell a bit. Repeat on the other side of the egg

Insert your bamboo skewer into the hole and break the yolk inside. Try to swirl the skewer around a bit to lightly scramble the egg. Wipe off the outside of the shell and while holding the egg over the bowl, put your lips up to the shell, sealing around the hole with your mouth and blow the insides into the bowl. 

Run water from the faucet into the egg, give it a shake and rinse out the inside. I do this a few times, blowing the water out just as I blew the egg out to make sure it’s clean. 

Using the pin again to gently poke a hole into the side of the egg. I definitely broke one when I did mine so have a few extras, just in case. And don’t feel bad if you break some, you can still cook up those eggs into a quiche or bake with them! Use a pair of craft scissors or nail scissors to carefully cut an oval window into the side of the egg. Trim this out as large as you like. And if the edges are a little ragged, it’s okay. You’ll cover them with the trim later. 

Now wipe your egg dry inside and out and paint it however you like. When dry, you can pad the inside bottom with a little foam or craft felt or even cardboard to give a flat surface for your miniatures to sit. 

When it comes to decorating, the sky is the limit. Actually…the size of the shell is the limit but you get the idea! I used craft moss inside of mine and a miniature headstone and raven but you can use Halloween florals, 3d print or sculpt your own minis or even use paper cut-outs to build your scenes. I kept some tweezers handy to help me get the fiddly bits into the shell and hold them while the hot glue cooled. 

When the scene is finished, glue some trim around the outer edge of the opening to finish the edge nicely and glue a loop of string on top to hang it. You can thread your string through a bead so the bead can be glued in place and hide the knot. 

I hope you enjoyed this project! Come back tomorrow for another DIY Halloween ornament for your tree!