Whether you need to prepare an entry for the Egg Decorating competition or you’re simply looking for ways to entertain the kids our tried and tested ideas may come in handy!!  Crafting is great fun albeit messy and great fun to do with the kids and they can be as simple or complicated as you like!

Decorating empty eggshells is the perfect Easter activity for your little ones. Once you know how to blow the eggs, the only limit is your child’s imagination. Plus, you can have scrambled eggs for lunch afterwards with the leftovers!

Obviously we don’t want to be wasting food at the moment so here’s how to blow an egg ready for decorating!

You will need: 

• Fresh eggs in an egg box
• A safety pin
• A toothpick
• A straw
• A measuring jug or bowl
• Pens and other art materials to decorate

Method: 

1. Sit an egg in your egg box to steady it. Holding the egg still, carefully tap and push a hole in the top centre of the egg with your safety pin. Once you have made the hole, carefully push one end of the pin in as far as it will go to widen it.

2. Take the toothpick and insert it into the hole; stir it around to help break up the yolk and make it easier to remove the insides at step 4.

3. Flip the egg over and make a second hole on the opposite side with your pin. Try to make the hole on the bottom a little bigger but be careful not to crack the shell. Break up the yolk again with your toothpick.

4. Hold the egg over a measuring jug with the bigger hole facing down. Use a straw to flush out the contents of the egg by placing the tip of the straw over the hole and blowing hard. First the egg white will come out, followed by the yolk – it can take a minute to get going, so be patient. You will know that it’s all out when it becomes lighter and you are just blowing out bubbles of egg white, followed by air.

5. Clean the shell by holding it carefully under running hot water from the kitchen tap. Wipe carefully with kitchen paper and leave to dry. Now you’re ready to decorate with paint, pens, stickers, felt, glitter or whatever else takes your fancy.

Now here are some ideas you can easily recreate at home!

10 Egg Decorating Ideas

Super Simple eggs for any TMNT fan out there. Either add green food colouring to the water for boiling or paint the eggs green and add coloured paper or felt strips and googly eyes!

2. Snorkelling Egg

This idea is super simple. Paint on the costume/trunks. Add a milk bottle top as the goggles and a straw for the snorkel!

3. Chick Egg

Cover the eggs with different coloured tissue paper, if you have feathers use for “hair” or shredded paper can also be used.   Felt or coloured paper for the beak and eyes can be stuck or drawn on.

• Bring water with brown and red onion skins to the boil.
• Once boiling, add eggs and boil until the shells are brown (will be longer than the normal 10 mins hard boiling time)
• Rub with oil to make them shiny once they are nearly cold.
• If you would like them patterned like the photo – draw on them with light coloured wax crayon, before boiling.

OR
Egg Jarping….this is something my in laws have done for many years and is great fun, especially as a family as all ages love it! Everybody should be in a circle or round a table.
Hold the egg in your fist (between thumb and first finger really).
One person needs to start and they tap their egg into the first recipient. It is likely that one egg will crack and one wont, the winner is the egg still in tact – it becomes a “oner” and moves onto “jarp” the next person. If it wins again, it becomes a “twoer” and so on. The person with the highest numbered egg wins.
You can choose tactics as to whether you use the round end or pointy end
And you can peel and then eat your egg once it is cracked!

5. Rugby Team Eggs

One for the sports lovers out there! Cut out your shirt shapes and add the design of your favourite teams. Draw faces on the players and position on either astroturf or grass inside a box. The box can then be decorated with posts and flags and maybe even a crowd! This can also be adjusted to football or hockey!

6. Rubber Band Eggs

Rubber bands are the perfect accessory for last-minute egg decorating!  Wrap your eggs in rubber bands and then either dye or paint around the bands.  Once the eggs are dry take them off and you have great patterns!

A great one for an Easter theme, use pink tissue paper to cover the body, cotton wool for the legs and tail and a biro for the eyes and nose!  Minimal parent involvement needed!

8. Emoji Eggs

How can you pick your favourite emoji? Well with this one you don’t have to! For emoji eggs, all you need is yellow & white paint (or use food colouring) and felt pens!

Create a family of your favourite birds including toucans, an owl, a penguin and a peacock. Or if farmyard animals are more your thing you can create pigs, cows and sheep with basic craft supplies and sharpies!

10. Fruit Eggs

These are fairly easy to create with paint, sharpies and craft box accessories, great one to do as a family!