6 Ways to Decorate Show Stopping Easter Eggs
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From drawing with beeswax to dying with silk, here are 6 quick ways to create professional Easter eggs with no experience…
Blown your eggs?
Before you’re let loose on the dyes and paints, blow the yolk out of your eggs so they survive Easter without rotting. Pierce both ends of your egg with a pin and widen one of the holes – make it big enough to poke a straight paper clip through to stir the yolk. Blow through the smaller hole until all the yolk has dripped into a bowl, then dip your egg into white vinegar – making it more absorbent and easier to decorate.
Top tip: when you’re done decorating, polish your finished Easter egg with a little vegetable oil to make it shine.
1. Glue tissue paper to your Easter egg
Decoupage is a simple, but mighty impressive technique. You need a pretty paper napkin. Or wrap tissue paper around an A4 sheet of paper and print any image you like – from family photos to cartoons or even your business logo, if you’re a tradesperson.
Cut your pictures and patterns out, peel the top layer of tissue off and PVA glue it to your Easter egg.
2. Dye intricate patterns with silk, mess-free
Buy a 100% silk tie for pennies at your local charity shop and remove all the lining so you’re left with the silk. Wrap it around your egg as tight as you can without breaking it, with the printed side (the outside of the tie) touching the shell. Tie together with string. Re-wrap your eggs in a white piece of fabric, like a sheet or a thin dish cloth for example, and tie again.
Now you’re ready to totally submerge your eggs in a pan of water, add ¼ cup of vinegar and boil for 20 minutes. Drain and cool, remove the fabric and prepare to be amazed.
3. Create a marble effect with nail varnish
Our painters and decorators told you marble bathrooms are the most desirable this year, so why not make your Easter egg look the part? Drip a few blobs of nail varnish into a cup of water, one colour on top of the other. Gently mix with a toothpick or drag a skewer from one side of the cup to the other. Dip your egg in and let it dry. Voila!
4. Dip dye the traditional Ukrainian way
You can use several coloured dyes to ‘Pysanky’ your Easter egg and create that quintessential stripy Easter egg look – with perfectly straight lines, that are all but impossible to paint. Simply mix 1 teaspoon of vinegar with 20 drops of food colouring in a hot cup of water to make as many colours as you fancy.
Using tongs, dye your egg a base colour – submerge it for under 5 minutes for light colours or at least 10 minutes for deeper shades. While it’s drying, melt beeswax. Dip both tips of your egg in the beeswax to protect the first colour underneath. When it’s cooled, dye your egg a second colour and let it dry.
Re-dip both ends of your egg deeper into the beeswax, leave to cool and dye it another colour. Pop your finished Easter egg on a tray lined with greaseproof paper, stick it in a 250 degree oven to melt the wax and wipe it off.
Feeling confident? Draw patterns or write your name in beeswax on your Easter egg – dye it, melt the wax and watch your patterns emerge.
6. Paint your eggs black to create mini chalkboards
Redecorate the same egg as many times as you like using chalk – whether you write your name on it, draw a pattern or leave yourself a reminder to call a real painter and decorator, the fun never ends.