Horse and Carriage Egg

I've finally got around to posting photos of some fabergé eggs that I have decorated.  I don't have photos of all the ones that I decorated before I had a digital camera, only those like this one that I still have access to.  This egg was decorated for my dad's 70th birthday, my mum commissioned me to do it,  my gift was the work that I put in.  

This particular egg I got from an Ostrich farm in the North of Western Australia, it was a "non hatcher" and so still full of very smelly egg that I had to remove- trust me, an ostrich egg is a lot of omelette!!  It somehow makes the finished product seem more refined, having come so far from it's original state. 

I cut the doors and windows with a Dremel high speed cutter, one of my favourite tools, I use it for all sorts of things around the house as well as craft. You do have to be very careful when cutting egg, using a face mask and good ventilation/extraction.



The horses are plastic ones from a farm set, I painted and sealed them with the same paint I painted the carriage with.  One of the things that took the longest with this egg was attaching all the chains to the horses, I was fiddling with chain everywhere,in front of TV, after dinner, even in the car on the way to jobs in the country -we were installing swimming pools at that time, and sometimes went 300 or 400 kms into the country to do them which gives you plenty of time for crafting or reading, though this "fiddly" work was a bit of a challenge on some of the corrugated roads we travelled on!
The wheels are bought as one piece, they are available in a "vertical" format as well, I have seen an egg done like a cinderella coach using that format and it looked really good.  The seat inside the carriage is a polystyrene ball cut to shape, covered with fabric with pins pushed in to give the quilted effect.  
There is even a chandelier inside made from a Swarovski bead, the rhinestone chain around the doors and windows is also from Swarovski.  

The board the horse and carriage is mounted on is Jarrah, our lovely native hardwood.  The plaque, which you can't really see in these photos says "The Dorrington Express", as "Dorrington" is my father's name! Some of the photos are not great quality, as my youngest son (who is a professional photographer) points out, but you get the idea...and it means I have them available to post now :)