Learn how to paint and decorate wooden Easter eggs for Easter egg hunts, Easter baskets, and DIY spring home decor.
Learn how to decorate wooden Easter eggs with the simple egg craft tutorial below. 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 on Easter egg hunts and find them in their Easter baskets on Easter mornings as much as hard-boiled decorated Easter eggs.
Wooden Easter eggs also make gorgeous DIY spring home decor and look lovely displayed throughout the home or on a spring nature table. And many people also like decorating wooden eggs as part of spring equinox celebrations. Scroll down to learn how to decorate wooden eggs with watercolors and a wood-burning 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 sustainable Easter egg crafts that you can reuse year after year. Wooden Easter eggs can become treasured heirloom keepsakes to pass down from generation to generation.
The decorated wooden Easter eggs below are made with a woodburning pen and watercolor paints. Working with a woodburning pen is as easy as drawing with a hot pencil, similar to adult coloring. And this makes painting and decorating wooden eggs a wonderful way to relieve stress while making something beautiful.
Alternatively, you can use paint pens to decorate wooden Easter Eggs. Click the link for even more wooden Easter egg decorating ideas. 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 eggs, wooden Easter eggs with a flat bottom, or white wooden easter eggs.
- Paint Pens
OR Woodburner Pen for Beginners
OR Versa-Temp Variable Temperature Control Woodburner
- Watercolor 12-Tube Set
or Liquid Watercolors (if not using paint pens)
- Watercolor Paint Brush Set (if using watercolors to paint wooden eggs)
- 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 painting or using a woodburning pen. This step is optional. You can also freehand your decorations onto the wooden eggs with paint pens or a woodburning tool.
- 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 extra-fine tip paint pens or a wood-burning pen
. Use the pinky finger of your dominant hand to help stabilize the wooden egg as you work.
- If you use a wood etching pen, take proper safety precautions around children– woodburning pencils are hot and dangerous tools!
- We also recommend practicing for a bit if you have never used a woodburning pen. And if you offer this wooden egg craft to an older child or teen, it’s best to teach them how to use a woodburning pen safely and supervise them as they work.
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 with the step-by-step Easter Egg decorating tutorials below.
How to Decorate Wooden Easter Eggs with Paint Pens
- Head over to see all 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.
We used watercolor tubes to decorate the DIY Wooden Easter Eggs shown in the photographs and these cute Easter Chicks. Painting wood with watercolors is easy; the color soaks right into the wood and fills in designs almost effortlessly.
And if you paint your decorated wooden Easter eggs with watercolor paints, you can use watercolors straight from the tube or concentrated liquid watercolors with the easy instructions below.
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.
- Dip your brush straight into the concentrated watercolors and paint, or dip each wooden egg directly into the liquid watercolor paint to color it.
4. Seal and Protect Decorated Wooden Easter Eggs (optional)
- Sealing and protecting decorated wooden eggs is necessary if you want the colors to last, especially if you plan to use them for Easter egg hunts because the paint colors can run if they get a little wet.
- Several years ago, we made our decorated wooden Easter eggs with watercolors and food-safe beeswax. But I don’t recommend using beeswax if you want lasting, vibrant colors because the colors of our decorated wooden Easter eggs have gradually faded since we made them in 2015.
- So if you want longer-lasting, vibrant colors, we recommend using a sealant with a foam brush instead.
Related: Fun Easter Traditions to Start
4 Fun Ways to Use Wooden Easter Eggs
- Use them to decorate your house with spring home decor by placing 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 much better than plastic eggs filled with candy for our environment and children’s health!
- Use decorated wooden eggs with egg cups for a great developmental activity for babies and toddlers aged six months to two 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 an excellent 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 a fantastic easy, eco-friendly, non-candy alternative to plastic Easter Eggs. Many people also like making wooden eggs part of 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 the other unique 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!