Hey everyone! My name is Stephanie Jones Rubiano and I am so delighted to be here as the Relics & Artifacts Guest Ambassador this month! I’ve never been an ambassador before…although I might have played one in a junior high theater production. The details are fuzzy. Anyway, I’m a mixed media artist who lives in music capital of the world (sorry Nashville), Austin, Texas, and loves to make things with my hands! My work tends to center around putting objects into boxes or similar spaces, so I am always on the lookout for new homes for my treasures.

Recently, I have been working with inkjet shrink plastic to construct miniature assemblages. When I saw the Egg Shrines by Relics & Artifacts, I KNEW I had to create something with them! Birds and butterflies figure prominently in my body of artwork and these shrines dovetailed perfectly with my personal aesthetic.

I love the matte finish of these blank shrines and I wanted to preserve that same look when painting these egg shrines so that they resemble the surface of real eggs. I selected a matte finish spray paint in a robin’s egg blue because I did not want brush strokes to show. It worked perfectly…next time I might try to sponge on brown speckles to mimic mockingbird eggs!

In keeping with the shrine theme, I chose to leaf the inside of the eggs. I had some gold metallic leaf from my grandmother’s art supplies and decided to dip into this stock to add meaning for me and a marvelous sheen to the inner egg for those who would view the completed pieces. You could easily use this stage as a jumping off point and create wonderful miniature art within this golden space!

I printed out some imagery of an owl, little girl, butterfly wings, flowers and some mushrooms onto inkjet shrink plastic, cut them out and shrank them. These tiny, sturdy plastic pieces are easy to assemble into groupings that fit perfectly within the egg shrines.

I thought the owl needed a crown (because what owl doesn’t?), so I cut one out of vintage tin and bolted it onto the plastic with miniature nuts and bolts. Then he needed a little nesting material, so I added some brown moss that I had found in the clearance aisle of the art store. No one else wanted that brown moss, but I immediately saw it as material to create bird nests!

Of course, these egg shrines make amazing Easter decorations as well! In fact, the first piece I ever made with these shrines was this one for Easter…and yes, evidently, I like robin’s egg blue! You could certainly use other colors…beiges, light greens and creams for a natural look and pastels for a holiday theme.

I love working with tiny things and these egg shrines provide plenty of inspiration for creative elements to be added to their inner spaces! Birds, fairies, ancestors or whatever else your imagination can dream up to reside within the centers of this iconic shape will certainly enjoy their new homes!