Polymer clay is fun stuff and I have about a dozen little squares of it around in happy colors in case I want to make a bead or two now and then. It bakes up in about half an hour and handles well, even to making paper-thin sheets.

I’d never tried to empty an egg, much less cover it with clay, but it worked. I made a roll of five colors (four snakes pressed around another middle snake and rolled together), and sliced it into quarter-inch discs, which made nice flower petals. The flowers got pressed to the empied, washed and microwaved (8 seconds) egg. Into the clay I pressed small pearlized beads.

To make working on the egg possible, I stuck a bamboo barbecue stick through the egg and stuck that into a block of flower-arranging foam. To bake it, I lay the egg-on-a-stick across a cake pan. This left two holes, one at either end of the final egg so I could thread a ribbon through with a few bead additions.

Ta da! Happy Easter!