Easter Centerpiece

The best ideas are stolen, and this one comes from an arrangement I saw in the current issue of Family Circle. I adapted it to use plastic eggs. It's pretty fast and easy. I made two of these while I watched a movie. Here's the directions:

Supplies
1 small Easter basket
13-15 plastic hinged eggs
1 styrofoam half ball to fit basket
drinking straws
pastel tissue paper
candy (M&Ms or jellybeans)
floral picks (with wires)
glue sticks and glue gun
Bunny pick (opt.)

Assembly Directions

Cut base of straws at an angle to make to make a point on one end, leaving straws about 6 inches long. Glue plastic eggs to straight end of straw. Use a big dollop of glue so that the straw stands upright. Hold in place until glue sets up.

Cut tissue paper in 3-1/2" squares. Poke the pointed end of the straw into the center of a square glue to the base of the egg. Take a second square in a different color, poke the straw through the center and glue this piece at a right angle to the second one. Attach tissue to all the eggs.

Cut green tissue leaves and attach to the floral picks with the attached wires. You'll need about 1 doz. leaves.

Fill eggs less than half full with candy (too much candy will bend the straw).

Glue styrofoam to base of basket. Arrange eggs and leaves in basket. Cut additional lengths off the straws to obtain a nice round arrangement. Use the leaves to fill in gaps. Add a bunny pick as an accent.

Where to shop

You can get the styrofoam at Wal-Mart and they have plastic eggs fairly cheap. The bunny pick I got is from Dollar Tree (2 to a pkg.) . The total cost is about $5-7 depending on how pricey a basket you use. I found mine at Walgreens for $3. Walmart had cute ones for $1.50.

OK, so this is a little Martha, but I doubt she'd use plastic eggs. She'd probably have you blow out and color goose or ostrich eggs.

For those who can't be trusted with glue guns

You can get the same effect by using foil wrapped chocolate eggs. Just take a bamboo skewer and stick it through the candy and the tissue paper and put into the basket.