Make a Peep Egg

A peep egg was a Victorian wonder. It was a popular gift which was often bought by people on holiday. The egg is made of alabaster, a material that lets in lots of light. Inside there were pictures on a spindle which you could look at through a lens in the top. The pictures were secret as they could only be seen through the lens. Enough light could travel through the alabaster to make the pictures show up. They came in all different sizes and all had different pictures inside. 

To make your own you will need:

• Scissors
• Large plastic bottle
• Empty toilet roll
• Sellotape
• Pictures to go inside
• Skewer
• Tissue paper
• PVA glue
• A hole punch
• Paintbrush

Step One

Take your empty plastic bottle and cut it into thirds. Recycle the middle piece so you just have the top and bottom pieces.

Step Two

Choose your colour of tissue paper and using your paintbrush and PVA glue, cover your bottle pieces with tissue paper. This is quite a sticky job so make sure you put newspaper down!

Step Three

While you leave these to dry cut your empty toilet roll to the right size for the bottle and glue or sellotape your pictures to the roll. Put the other half of the roll to one side – we’ll need it later!

Step Four

Once your bottle is dry, use your hole punch to make two holes on either side of your bottom bottle piece. This will be for your skewer.

Step Five

To secure your picture roll in place so it will rotate with the skewer, get the other half of the toilet roll and cut 2 pieces. Poke a small hole in each one and tape to the ends of your picture roll. If you can use the skewer to make the hole it will be the perfect size – be careful if it is sharp. Place your roll on the skewer and put it in place!

Step Six

Tape the top half of your bottle on to the bottom half and make sure it is
secure.

Finish

Take a look through the top of the bottle to look at your pictures! Experiment with torches and different levels of light to see what works best. You can also paint the outside of your peep egg over the tissue paper if you want to! See if you can make a peep egg out of other items like yoghurt pots, jam jars or even a cardboard box! (just cut some holes in it to let in some light!)

Photo credit: Louise Isselé/CC BY-SA 4.0