Is That a Giant Easter Egg?

You've probably noticed the giant Easter egg that's been hanging around H Street recently. It's big, and yellow, and has the hashtag #HstEaster on its side. The egg is the work of Capital City Church, which holds its services at the Atlas (1333 H Street). The church members wanted to reach out, and engage the larger community in a fun way. Though the egg has mostly hung out at the corner of 11th and H, it has also visited Taylor Gourmet (1116 H Street), and I'm told it may have a Karaoke night in its future.

More info and pics of the egg's construction after the jump.

Here's a little more about the egg:

"The overall dimension of the egg is 7.5 ft tall, 5 ft wide, with its largest circumference being 16 ft. The egg itself only weighs about 75 lbs, but is weighed down internally with lots of extra weight to keep it from blowing away like in the 30 mph winds we got on Monday, which was a true test for its durability. The only 'crack in the egg' has come from some small act of vandalism when someone tore a small hole in the back to take a look inside. The egg can play music, talk and listen, all of which is done with electronics that are taken out when not in use, which is what the person who vandalized it on Sunday discovered."

All pics and explanation text appearing below provided by Hunter Wilder, the guy who actually built the egg.


Connect Four PVC pipes together with two four-way connectors


Secure outer south-pole side of PVC pipes to a wide cut-out circle of plywood. Secure a second smaller cut-out circle of plywood in the inner south-pole side PVC pipes and place a metal pipe between the center of inner circle of plywood and the north pole inner side of PVC pipes.


Now make several different sized circles out of PVC pipes and secure them around the egg. The shape of the egg is finally coming alive!


Now wrap the egg up and down with packing sealing wrap as many times as desired. The more you wrap the smoother you egg will end up. I actually thought about stopping the egg here and adding some lights, would have looked really cool and modern.


Now paper mâché the egg! In order to do so, I actually bought paint rolls to roll the mâché mixture on the egg and then place the dry newspaper on top. Cover the egg with a few layers putting mâché mixture on both sides of every piece of the newspaper. Hint: smaller strips of the newspaper caused less wrinkles than larger strips.


Paint with regular exterior paint once paper mâché has dried completely and thin plywood around bottom to form a base.


Decorate to your liking!