If you love the challenge of making ordinary things beautiful, decorating Easter eggs is the perfect holiday activity. Big or small, fake or fresh—eggs are perfect little canvases. For our 2019 Easter egg decorating ideas, Blog Designer Kelly C. gave our artists a color palette, materials list, and some of-the-moment trends and locked them in our workshop with Erin M., our Photo Stylist. We hope the results will inspire you to decorate your own.

2019 Easter Egg Decorating Materials

• Artificial eggs: Paper mache, wooden—even shiny plastic
• Confetti
• Washi tape
• Paint: gouache, acrylic, spray
• Paint brushes
• Paint markers
• Color pencils
• Nail polish
• Sequins and gems
• Stick-on letters
• Paper scraps: gift wrap, holographic papers, iridescent cellophane
• Cotton swabs
• Craft knife
• Scissors
• Craft glue
• Wooden skewers
• Plastic paint palettes

Planning to decorate your eggs

We chatted with the artists to get their egg decorating ideas. Kelly’s assignment allowed them all to do some prep-work up front.

CHRISTY N.: I sketched out some ideas before beginning to paint so that I could focus on my brush control.

Pro-tip

CHRISTY: Use brushes in a variety of sizes and shapes. Each brush makes its own distinct marks and textures.

Pro-tip

LYNN G.: Make a little hole in the bottom of the egg to stick a wooden skewer in to help hold and stabilize the egg. Then you can stick the skewer in the egg carton to dry. You can also use a cotton swab to put dots of glue on the egg, then use a craft knife to help place the sequins or confetti on the dot of glue.

MARCOS R.: We had a variety of eggs to choose from and I was instantly drawn to the brown paper mache eggs—they seemed like the perfect blank canvas to transform. They also inspired me to decorate them using collage and keep everything paper-based. I stuck to a tight color palette and made a little sketch collage to get warmed up.

FELICIA K.: I started with looking at abstract works by Wassily Kandinsky to get myself inspired for the sort of mark making I wanted to achieve.

LYNN: My game plan was to try and capture the magic of a jumble of confetti. I bought a bag that had the right colors—I picked through to get just the colors that I wanted.

LAURA Y.: To plan for this workshop I spent time creating a list of trends and ideas I wanted to try. Then I went straight to my sketchbook with paint to hash out some of the ideas quickly. It was a good starting point, even though I didn’t necessarily stick to the sketch when it came time to paint the egg!

ALLIE S.: I knew from the beginning that I wanted to start by spray painting my eggs!

JULIANNE M.: I looked at some of my favorite artists and tried to pull a little bit of inspiration from them. I knew I definitely wanted to do something more surface design rather than illustrative.

Pro-tip

FELICIA: Prep work is key! Oh—and use a roll of washi tape to rest your eggs in while you paint.

Bringing your Easter egg decorating ideas to life

LAURA: I tried to keep my designs simple and easily achievable for anyone wanting to try. I mainly used mark-making and simple lines. I used acrylic paint and used gold paint when I wanted to “shake things up.” In my sketchbook, I used a colored pencil—but I knew it would smudge so I mimicked the look with a dry paint brush.

ALLIE: I used one to three colors to create the base layer for most of the eggs I decorated. From there I added sequins, painted brush strokes, and used gold puffy letter stickers to decorate with.  I kept some designs simple to allow the ombre spray paint to stand out.

FELICIA: I decorated my eggs in abstract flowers and grass drawings by sticking with limited colors and bolder shapes. Using a mix of brush sizes, I was able to create a variety of textures and strokes to give motion to my designs. With a more fluid paint, I added a little bit of splatter to the surface and finished off with the holographic tape for some extra dimension.

JULIANNE: I tried a few different things! I used spray paint for an ombre effect, and I also tried to create that ombre look with watered down acrylic. I made a bolder egg with a colorful terrazzo pattern. I also tried to do a mini abstract look on a couple of my eggs. It was cool to see how the colors relate to each other, and I really like how they came out like mini canvases. Also I used lots of gold spray paint. You can never go wrong with a little metallic.

CHRISTY: I adjusted the designs as I went along, depending on my personal intuition. For this fun activity, I simply used acrylic paint as well as a metallic gold marker for those finer details. I was so excited to decorate these eggs that I had to constantly remind myself to stay patient and wait for the paint to dry completely between each layer.

LYNN: The confetti pieces were too big so I cut them down and started gluing. I also painted some colors on with nail polish—I had some in the right colors and I liked how slick it looked. I was happy with the final effect: I liked having contrasts of painted colors and confetti.

MARCOS: Since my eggs were originally brown paper color, I decided to cover them with acrylic paint and let them dry.  Then I decorated them using scrap papers that I cut up into little bits and strips. A Signature card that my friend gave me had a holographic envelope liner that I cut up and reused. It was perfect for adding some extra shine to my Easter eggs.

Pro-tips

ALLIE: My best tip would be to stick within a color palette. And don’t be afraid to use non-traditional colors and materials to decorate with.

AND JULIANNE AGREES: Start with a limited palette, and don’t feel like it has to be the traditional pastel colors. Pick something bold—or just your favorite colors and just go for it.

WANT TO SEE MORE EASTER EGG DECORATING IDEAS? We painted some last year, and tried all sorts of things the year before, and did some serious layering techniques before that, and hand-painted wooden eggs when the blog was new. Try them all!

Please, pretty please with a fried egg on top, share your decorated Easter eggs with us. We’re on Instagram at @think.make.share.

Photography by Erin M.

— Kelly C.