4 Simple techniques to Colour, Dye and Decorate Easter Eggs

Inside: Decorate and colour your Easter eggs with gold foil, shaving cream, rice and even paper towel; simple techniques to use in an Easter basket or for an Easter egg hunt!

Easter egg hunts are always so much fun. Whether you plan it outdoors or do it in the comfort of your own home, having a little hunt for treats to celebrate the season is a great way to create memories and have some family fun! When I was a kid, we always decorated eggs and I remember it being a big mess. There would be coloured dye on our hands for days LOL But now, there are so many more creative ways to decorate and colour eggs. I’m sharing some of my favourite techniques for colouring Easter eggs with you today!

If you’re looking for ideas for Easter Gift Baskets check out this post! I’ve rounded up a bunch of fun ideas for treats that range from DIY to store bought.

General Supplies for Dying Easter Eggs

You’ll want to be well prepared for this project. Even though the supplies are basic and the techniques are simple, it can definitely still make a mess!

Basic supplies you’ll want will be a drop sheet or a plastic table cloth (one you use for crafting or something), paper towel and a bowl of water for clean-up, and soap near by 🙂

You’ll also want to make sure you have a few empty egg carton slots on hand to allow the eggs to dry and you might even want to put your kids in smocks or aprons, just in case.

How to Decorate Easter Eggs with Gold Foil

Gold foil is just stunning. And when you add it to an Easter project, it brings it to life. This craft seems like it will be challenging, but it’s so super simple. Basically you just take the glue (otherwise known as gold size) and wing it! Now, I don’t recommend using real eggs for this type of decorating. Try to grab the foam ones at the dollar store or online.

Supplies for Gold Foil Decorated Eggs

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Step by Step Instructions to Gold Foil your Easter Eggs

The first step is to paint your eggs. A word about the eggs. I’m using styrofoam simply because they will last a bit longer. I let them dry completely overnight just to be sure.

2. Now the fun part! Gilding with gold leaf! Brush a light coat of Gold Size onto your egg (I did half at a time so my hands didn’t get super sticky.) Let it sit for about 20-30 seconds to get tacky. If the sizing is goopy or too wet, the gold won’t stick and it’ll just squish around and not work. I used this Annie Sloan Gold Size I’ve had forever, but you can certainly get other brands at the craft store.

3. Cut the gold foil into smaller, manageable pieces. Making sure to leave the plastic or tissue backing on as long as possible. The foil is super delicate, so the backing just protects it from tearing before you use it.

4. Once the sizing is tacky, then just smoosh the gold foil onto the sticky area of the egg. You don’t have to be super precise. Smooth it down with your fingers gently.

5. Then using a rounded brush gently brush away the foil areas, and all the loose bits will fall away. I let mine all collect on my cardboard scrap so I could roll my eggs in the teeny bits as well. You don’t have to use a lot of force to brush the gold away. Just slow and steady!

How to Dye Easter Eggs with Shaving Cream

This is the most fun technique, I think of all the techniques I’ve learned. However, I will warn you about the smell! I bought shaving cream at the dollar store and safe to say, it was the cheapest smelling shaving cream I’ve ever smelled. And you need to use A LOT of it for this craft, so your house will smell like an overrun barber shop if you aren’t careful 🙂

Also, this craft uses real hard boiled eggs. This won’t work on the foam or plastic eggs. I’ve also heard from a few people that if you want these eggs to be edible, this will work with spray can whipped cream as well.

Supplies to dye eggs with shaving cream

hard boiled eggs
disposable foil baking pans
shaving cream in an aerosol can
food colouring in colours of choice
large bowl or plastic container of lukewarm water

Step by Step to dye eggs with shaving cream (or whipped cream)

Fill your foil baking pan (I used a bread pan size to keep things manageable) with shaving cream to almost the top.
Squirt the food colouring in a bunch of squiggle lines all over the top of the shave cream and then draw a knife or your finger through it to create coloured swirls in the cream. It should look very abstract.
Now place your cooked eggs right into the cream, making sure they are totally immersed in the cream. You can roll them around a bit if you want.
Let them sit for at least 30 minutes.
Pull them out and rinse the coloured cream off the eggs to reveal the dye. Let them dry for a few hours before handling them.

How to Colour Easter Eggs with Rice

Perfect for toddlers! This is the cutest technique and the outcome is absolutely stunning! I think this can work on foam eggs or real eggs. It’s up to you. And I’d say experiment with the colour combinations you use! Plus, at the end of it all, the rice is still edible!

Supplies to colour Easter Eggs with Rice

1 cup of long grain rice per egg
hard boiled eggs or foam eggs
a few medium sized plastic containers with lids
food colouring in a variety of colours

Step by step to colour eggs with rice

Fill a few of the containers with about a cup of rice each. One for each egg you will decorate.
Add a few drops of food colouring to the rice. Somewhere between 4 and 6 drops total is a good amount. You can do a 2-3 colours of dye or just stick to one! Be creative.
Gently place your egg in the container and snap on the lid. Shake the container side to side and up and down gently, making sure not to crack the egg.
Remove the egg and let it dry for a few minutes before handling.

How to Make Tye-Dye Textured Easter Eggs

Full warning, this technique is SO COOL, but it’s probably the messiest of all of them. But it’s still very very cool and it gives your decorated eggs this awesome 80s vibe! I call them tye-dye, but they sorta end up looking pixelated like a video game depending on the type of paper towel you use.

Supplies to dye Easter Eggs with Paper Towel

hard boiled eggs
the egg carton (you really need to keep this)
paper towel – the tufted kind with textured ridges
food colouring in a variety of colours

Step by step for dying eggs with paper towel to make them look retro!

Rip off a piece of paper towel, just large enough to cover the egg entirely. It’s probably about 1/3 of a sheet of standard paper towel. It’s okay if it’s a bit bigger, the key is the entire egg is covered in paper towel.
Wrap the egg gently and use the food colouring to dot the paper towel with colour randomly all over. (Your hands will get messy).
Once you’ve added enough colour and the towel is saturated, make sure the paper is tight around the egg and making contact with the shell and set your egg in the carton to dry.
After about 15 minutes, gently pull away the paper towel to reveal the patterned egg!