Learn how to paint and decorate wooden Easter eggs for Easter egg hunts, Easter baskets, and DIY spring home decor.
Decorated wooden Easter eggs are a fun eco-friendly alternative to traditional hard-boiled Easter eggs and plastic candy-filled eggs. Children love to hunt wooden Easter eggs down on Easter egg hunts and find them in their Easter baskets on Easter morning.
Wooden Easter eggs also make gorgeous DIY spring home decor and look lovely displayed throughout the home or on a spring nature table. Many people also like to decorate wooden eggs as a part of their spring equinox celebrations. Scroll down to learn how to decorate wooden eggs with watercolors and a woodburning pen or pencil!
Related: Easter Traditions to Start with Your Family
Related: Watercolor Surprise Easter Egg Art
How to Decorate Wooden Easter Eggs
Wooden Easter Egg crafts are an eco-friendly, non-candy alternative to plastic candy-filled Easter Eggs. And they are also a sustainable Easter egg craft that you can re-use year after year. Wooden Easter eggs can become treasured heirloom keepsakes to pass down generation after generation.
The decorated wooden Easter eggs in these photographs are made with a woodburning pen and watercolor paints. Working with a woodburning pen is as easy as drawing with a hot pencil and a lot like adult coloring–It is a wonderful way to relieve stress while making something beautiful.
Alternatively, you can use paint pens to decorate wooden Easter Eggs. Directions for both wooden Easter egg decorating ideas are given below. Or, make these super cute Easter Chick Easter Eggs with a woodburning pen or paint pens.
Related: How to Make an Easter Tree
DIY Wooden Easter Eggs Supplies
- Pencil (optional)
- Wooden Easter Eggs
- Paint Pens
OR Woodburner Pen for Beginners
OR Versa-Temp Variable Temperature Control Woodburner
- Watercolor 12-Tube Set
or Liquid Watercolors
- Watercolor Paint Brush Set
- Beeswax or a Sealant with a Foam Brush
Related: Cute Spring Chick Craft Ideas
DIY Wooden Easter Eggs Step-by-Step Directions
Use the step-by-step instructions below to decorate gorgeous wooden eggs for Easter.
1. Pencil designs onto wooden Easter eggs (optional)
- Use a pencil to draw simple designs onto wooden eggs before using a woodburning pen. This step is optional. You can also freehand your decorations onto the wooden eggs with a woodburning tool or extra-fine tip paint pens.
- Some examples include; jagged, straight, and wiggly verticle and horizontal lines, flowers, hearts, polka dots, simple pictures, etc.
- For more ideas, look at paint pen Easter egg decorating ideas.
2. Use a woodburning pen or paint pens to create designs on wooden Easter eggs
- Trace penciled designs or freehand drawings directly onto wooden Easter eggs with a woodburning pen or extra-fine tip paint pens
. Use the pinky of your dominant hand to help stabilize the wooden egg as you work.
- If you choose to use a woodburning tool, make sure you take proper safety precautions around children. Woodburning pens are hot and dangerous tools!
- We also recommend practicing for a bit if you have never used a woodburning pen. If you are offering this wooden egg craft to an older child or teen, make sure you teach them how to use a woodburning pen safely and supervise them.
3. Paint wooden Easter eggs with paint pens or watercolors to add color to Easter egg designs (optional)
- Use extra fine tip paint pens
or watercolors to fill in wooden Easter egg decorations.
- Painting wood with watercolors is easy, and the color soaks right into the wood and fills in designs almost effortlessly. If you choose to paint your decorated wooden Easter eggs with watercolor paints, you can use watercolors straight from the tube or concentrated liquid watercolors.
- Do not use solid watercolors from a pallet for this DIY project. They do not provide the concentrated color that watercolor tubes and liquid watercolors can.
How to Decorate Wooden Easter Eggs with Paint Pens
- Head over to see all of the fun paint pen Easter egg decorating ideas we came up with.
How to Paint Wooden Easter Eggs with Watercolors in a Tube
- Squeeze a small amount into a small container–you won’t need much.
- Dip your watercolor brush into a tiny bit of water.
- Load a paintbrush with watercolor paint and brush it onto the wooden eggs to decorate them.
How to Paint Wooden Easter Eggs with liquid watercolors
- You do not need to use water unless you want to mute or tone down the colors.
- Simply dip your brush straight into the concentrated color and paint, or dip each wooden egg directly into the liquid watercolor paints to color it.
Note: We used watercolor tubes for our DIY Wooden Easter Eggs and Easter Chicks. I didn’t have a photo of painting our DIY wooden Easter eggs, so the cute little Easter Chick below will have to do. 🙂
4. Seal and Protect Decorated Wooden Easter Eggs (optional)
- Several years ago, we made our decorated wooden Easter eggs with watercolors and food, and child-safe beeswax. I don’t recommend it if you want lasting, vibrant colors, and the watercolors have faded quite a bit over time.
- For longer-lasting vibrant colors, use a sealant with a foam brush instead. A sealant also works best to seal and protect wooden eggs decorated with paint pens.
Related: Fun Easter Traditions to Start
4 Fun Ways to Use Wooden Easter Eggs
- Use them to decorate your house with spring home decor. Place Wooden Easter Eggs on your mantle, tables, or Spring Nature Tables.
- Put wooden Easter eggs in Easter baskets.
- Hide wooden eggs for Easter egg hunts. They are so much better than plastic eggs filled with candy, both for the health of our environment and the health of our children!
- Use them with Egg cups for a fantastic developmental activity for babies and toddlers aged six months to 2 years. I would have never guessed my daughter’s love affair with wooden eggs and egg cups
. Allow your baby to practice putting a wooden egg into an egg cup and taking it out again for a fantastic hand-eye coordination activity that toddlers love!
Decorated Wooden Eggs for Easter
Decorated wooden Easter eggs are a fun and easy Easter egg craft project for kids, teens, and adults. Kids love to hunt wooden Easter eggs down on Easter egg hunts as much as they like to find them in their Easter Baskets.
Decorated Easter eggs are also a fantastic easy, eco-friendly, non-candy alternative to plastic Easter Eggs. Many people also like to make wooden eggs part of their spring equinox celebrations.
Wooden Easter eggs also make gorgeous DIY spring home decor and look lovely displayed throughout the home or on a spring nature table. Hop over to look at our Easter chick wooden eggs and all of the other amazing wooden egg craft ideas you can make for Easter.
Don’t forget to look at our spring bucket list and Easter traditions. You can start with your family.
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These are gorgeous!