50 of Our All-Time Best Ideas for Decorating Easter Eggs

Emily Kate Roemer
Here's a roundup of some of the best egg-decorating tips and tricks we've hatched over the years. With our techniques as a guide, you can create the prettiest holiday treasures.
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Emily Kate Roemer

If you've followed us over the years, you already know there's more than one way to create a colorful Easter egg. While dipping and dyeing are surefire ways to end up with beautiful eggs, there are countless other techniques you can try your hand at, too. If you're looking to create something unique enough to showcase as part of your Easter tablescape or to hide as part of a fun Easter egg hunt, we're sharing a range of ideas—from finely-crafted masterpieces to easy crafts that the kids will enjoy—that the whole family will enjoy.

If you're looking to dye Easter eggs, there are several methods to try beyond a standard one-color dip. You could use wax to create customized masked designs or you could work with paper, ribbon, and even stencils to nail more complicated looks. One of the easiest ways to create eye-catching patterns when dyeing Easter eggs is to wrap them in rubber bands in between coats of dye, which results in the most perfect striped eggs. If vivid hues are what you're after, try reusing common kitchen scraps to create natural dyes.

Some of the most sophisticated Easter eggs don't require any form of dyeing at all: From découpage to acrylic paint, you can use other craft supplies to create intricate designs that will surely impress. Our most innovative Easter egg designs call for three-dimensional features, including candy molds and polymer clay on our Jasperware-inspired eggs. Other designs seamlessly come together using other materials you may have around the house, including temporary tattoos and nail decals.

Whatever you're skill level, we provide helpful resources like printable templates, videos, and color charts. These family-friendly ideas are filled with classic designs and newfound inspirations that'll thrill everyone in your home.

 

Don't miss out: Get

Martha's Guide to Easter Eggs

—it's the exclusive resource for tutorials, tips and decorating ideas.

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Royal Copenhagen Easter Eggs

Lennart Weibull
Get the Royal Copenhagen Easter Eggs How-To

You can use temporary tattoos and nail decals to easily achieve the delicate look of this Royal Easter egg—apply them to the exterior of your egg shell just as you would to yourself.

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Polka-Dot Easter Eggs

NGOC MINH NGO

Simple to make and sure to stand out in a crowd, these polka-dots are as fun to make as they are to wear. Whether you paint them on small or big, these polka dots are sure to deliver that pop of color you've been looking for. 

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Silk-Dyed Easter Eggs

Janelle Jones
Get the Silk-Tie Easter Eggs How-To

Add florals, stripes, and swirls to your Easter eggs with this simple silk-dyeing technique.

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Jasperware Easter Eggs

Lennart Weibull
Get the Jasperware Easter Eggs How-To

Our editors found that organic egg varieties did a better job of taking on the dye in this case, as you'll mostly focus on creating custom candy molds to later affix to your creations. For eggs that you can use year after year, you'll need to blow these out before you get started.

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Luster Splatterware Easter Eggs

Lennart Weibull
Get the Luster Splatterware Easter Eggs How-To

The key to creating these beautiful spceckled eggs is to drop a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil into your dye, then rub the oily surface of your egg with edible dust for extra shimmer and shine.

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Paper-Doily Easter Eggs

NGOC MINH NGO

Use doilies to create delicate eyelet-inspired Easter eggs that everyone will think are too pretty to play with.

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Two-Tone Easter Eggs

Johnny Miller
Get the Two-Tone Easter Eggs How-To

Your guests will be shocked when they learn that these eggs are indeed spray-painted, which help to create a ombré sunrise effect when they're all placed together. While you can make as many as you'd like, arranging a few dozen in an Easter centerpiece could certainly serve as a show-stopping decoration.

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Dot and Stripe Stamped Eggs

Get the Dot and Stripe Stamped Eggs How-To

These adorable eggs are actually very simple to make, and they're created with the help of a crafting material that the kids will love to play with—bubble wrap! Try selecting a few pastel shades to mix in a new set of your favorites.

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Family Tree Eggs

Janelle Jones
Get the Family Tree Eggs How-To

Here's a sweet tradition to start with your family: Copy your favorite photographs of every member, découpage them onto eggs, then arranged on a tabletop "family tree."

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Naturally-Dyed Easter Eggs

Janelle Jones
Get the Naturally-Dyed Easter Eggs How-To

Your kitchen is full of natural dyes. Common food items such as red cabbage, onion skins, and coffee can be used to transform plain white eggs into a rainbow of colors. Kids will especially love discovering all the different colors they can create—let them experiment using hard-boiled eggs and bowls of cold dyes.

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Café-Au-Lait-Bowl Easter Eggs

Lennart Weibull
Get the Café-Au-Lait-Bowl Easter Eggs How-To

To get the look of vintage café au lait bowls, set an egg back in its carton, spray-paint the top, and add matching dots. You can easily create polka dots by dipping a foam pouncer into a bit of white or blue craft paint and transferring it to your egg.

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Shaving Cream Dyed Eggs

Shanna Sullivan
Get the Shaving Cream Easter Eggs How-To

Reach into your bathroom's vanity cabinet for this effortless substitiute to dyeing your eggs in pure vinegar (as an added bonus, this method smells great!). Little ones will love mixing all sorts of colors in the shaving cream to marbelize their eggs effortlessly.

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Floral Stamped Easter Eggs

Ngoc Minh Ngo

Recreate Liberty of London's sweet flowerscapes with rubber stamps and chalk in to create these beautifully decorated Easter eggs.

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Color-Block Painted Wooden Eggs

Raymond Hom
Get the Color-Block Painted Wooden Easter Eggs How-TO

Who said your Easter eggs have to be actual egg shells? These wooden Easter eggs are easy to customize with color—as an added bonus, you can reuse them year after year, which makes even just one set so valuable.

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Dyed Wooden Easter Eggs

Johnny Miller
Get the Dyed Wooden Eggs How-To

These eggs will last for many Easters to come seeing as they're made of wood. To make them even more unique, dye them in any color of the rainbow.

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Pierced Creamware Easter Eggs

Lennart Weibull
Get the Pierced Creamware Easter Eggs How-To

The easiest way to get this lacy look is to use sticker stencils, which are best used on natural brown eggs or larger white eggs dipped in a gray shade to create a visual pop.

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Foiled Eggs

Who knew the fabled golden egg could look so cool? Colorfully dyed eggs get a bit of bling from gold or copper foil, and while the look is luxe, the foil is surprisingly affordable.

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Gingham Découpaged Easter Eggs

Ngoc Minh Ngo

Check it out! Gingham, checks, stripes—like grass, they pop up everywhere in spring. Why not use an old men's shirt and follow the trend to make some fashionable Easter eggs?

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Puffy Paint Easter Eggs

Ngoc Minh Ngo

Cover your eggs with a pop of color and tons of swiss dots using puffy paint for a 3-D effect. 

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Splatter Paint Eggs

Chelsea McNamara
Get the Splatter Paint Eggs How-To

Looking for a last-minute Easter egg to impress your guests? All you have to do is shop your own pantry! To get the speckled look, simply mix food dye and dry foods (think beans, nuts, and popcorn kernels) in a paper cup, then add a hard-cooked egg. Gently shake and swirl the cups to create stunning speckles.

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Washi Tape-Decorated Easter Eggs

Obsessed with washi tape? With a single roll, kids will love coming up with their own creative and fun designs.

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Easter Egg Designs

Emily Kate Roemer
Get the Easter Egg Designs How-To

A simple dye bath is everyone's favorite way to decorate Easter eggs, but have you tried our tips and tricks to the perfectly dyed Easter egg? Here's one tip: Try dyeing different sizes and types of eggs for a variety of looks.

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Cherry Blossom Easter Eggs

Shanna Sullivan

Inspired by the annual flowering blossoms as seen at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden during springtime, these Easter eggs with delicate cherry blossoms celebrate spring in the most beautiful way.

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Galaxy Easter Eggs

Shanna Sullivan

Give your eggs a speckled, cosmic look that makes them appear as if they were freshly plucked from amongst the stars. These painted Easter eggs are a departure from the typical pastel palette of springtime with deeper, darker tones.

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Typography Easter Eggs

Anusha Rajeswaran
Make Typography Easter Eggs

Personalize your Easter eggs with this bright and colorful typography approach. Use them as place cards or as centerpieces for your Sunday dining table, as they'll look perfect alongside any Easter menu.

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Stick-On Gold Easter Eggs

Shanna Sullivan
Get the Stick-On Gold Easter Eggs How-To

Temporary tattoos stick to eggs just like they would to your skin. All you need is a pretty design and a wet sponge for this simple Easter egg how-to.

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Pointillism Easter Eggs

Shanna Sullivan

Inspired by pointillism art, these Easter eggs are decorated with a series of teeny-tiny dots in pastel colors to create fun shapes.

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Scrambled Lines and Letters Eggs

These graphic eggs take a design cue from the printing press, where misaligned plates result in slightly skewed, or "off-register," type and images.

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Cheeky Chickens

This brood is all smiles, er, beaks as they pose for a family portrait to welcome their latest addition. (The photo hanging behind them was taken before the new chick hatched.)

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Marbleized Swirls

Get the Eggs with Marbleized Swirls How-To

If the earth hatched from a giant egg, as the ancient Persians believed, it might have resembled one of these in our dreamy dozen. We used a simple dyeing technique to create the intricate swirls of color. Every Easter egg made this way is one of a kind.

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Glittered Eggs

Get the Glittered Eggs How-To

Coating Easter eggs with glitter provides a sparkling alternative to coloring them with dyes.

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Pysanky Eggs

Gail Lambka
Learn More About Making Pysanksy Eggs

These intricate eggs are mesmerizing in their beauty, and decidedly a departure from traditional Easter designs. Pysanky eggs are hand-drawn creations—first in pencil using guidelines to section off an egg into a grid pattern, and then with detail within the grid.

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Masked Designs