Make these pretty collage Easter eggs with images from printed paper napkins. This project is easy enough for children to do and the results are beautiful.
We made some beautiful collage Easter eggs with the eggs we blew out the other day. Using paper napkins, if you can believe it.
The paper napkin decoupage idea is from Martha Stewart. Here’s her tutorial.
MY LATEST VIDEOSWe were planning to use half the blown eggs for this idea (what I wanted to do) and the other half for the oil pastel resist and dye idea (what Maia wanted to do), but in the end Maia wanted to dye them all and asked why we couldn’t just combine the two ideas and glue the paper napkin shapes on top of the dyed eggs.
Well, of course we could. And did.
I LOVE how they turned out!
Collage Easter Eggs with Paper Napkins
MATERIALS
- Eggs, either hard-boiled or hollow
- Easter egg dye
- Paper napkins with printed pictures and designs
- Scissors
- Glue
- Paint brush
INSTRUCTIONS
Step 1. Dye your eggs.
Actually, before we dyed our hollow eggs, we decorated them with oil pastel drawings. This step is optional, but something the kids wanted to do.
Oil pastels glide on so smoothly and don’t require much pressure—important for fragile blown-out eggs.
Then we dyed the eggs with a store-bought kit.
Make sure to let the eggs dry before starting phase two of the project.
Step 2. Cut Out Images from Paper Napkins.
For the next step, we all cut out flowers, butterflies, and random shapes from a set of pretty paper napkins I bought for the purpose.
Step 3. Paste the Paper Napkin Images to the Eggs.
We used watered-down Elmer’s glue and a paint brush to paste the napkin images onto our dyed eggs.
Step 4 . Admire and Use Your New Eggs
Here are some of my collaged Easter eggs.
And, um, some more of mine. I’m having a bad Mom moment. I just realized I only took close up photos of my own eggs and not any of Maia’s or Marlise’s.
Oops.
Have you tried decoupage Easter eggs? If not, give this paper napkin idea a try!
Update: We used our collage Easter eggs to decorate our new Easter egg tree.
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33 Comments
frivolitea
April 13, 2011 at 7:11 amLooks like fun – and the results are beautiful!
Darcy Troutman
April 13, 2011 at 8:29 amlovely!!
tasha
April 13, 2011 at 8:38 amThey are stunning!!!!
[email protected]
April 13, 2011 at 8:43 ambeautiful! I love these. I will have to try one day.
Julie Liddle, ART IN HAND
April 13, 2011 at 8:50 amWow. Beautiful.
Berceste
April 13, 2011 at 8:56 amSo beautiful!
I have a question about tecnique. Inside of the egg is empty and egg is not strong. While you use pastels, there were a risk to crash them. How to do it without any harm of the egg?
One more question :) My daughter is 2 years old and how can I teach her to use scrissor? She would like to use it too much but she is not too much succesful to do.
Phyllis
April 13, 2011 at 9:44 amThose are lovely.
Lisa F.
April 13, 2011 at 10:51 ambeautiful! we colored blown out eggs when I was little, and then threaded yarn through the holes & hung them on a branch my mom painted and attached to a base.
Rashmie @ MommyLabs
April 13, 2011 at 10:51 amHey, glad to be here after long. Remember, I had vented out on your FB page some days back that my broadband service provider is having issues with all TypePad blogs? But, since we just moved house and got a new internet connection, the issue is resolved. Phew!
This dye and decoupage project looks really nice and neat. Love the colours and the prints look so beautiful…
I have been thinking of decorating blown out eggs for a while now. Time to lay our hands on a similar project!
Britta
April 13, 2011 at 10:53 amBeautiful. But tell me more about the elf cape Marlise is wearing!!!
MTVath
April 13, 2011 at 11:02 amYes I love the cape Marlise is wearing. Oh and the eggs are beautiful too ;-)
Holly
April 13, 2011 at 11:07 amWhat great idea!!! I love this!!!
pepi
April 13, 2011 at 11:21 amUntil now I had never thought of doing this in an egg…Nice!
Amanda
April 13, 2011 at 12:23 pmI love them! The eggs are so beautiful, and her cape is stunning!
Thanks for the inspiration!
Amanda
Rachelle @ tinkerlab
April 13, 2011 at 12:26 pmthese are gorgeous, and so different from most of the eggs i’ve seen. your bad mom moment made me laugh — at least you captured the kids making eggs so we know they were involved :)
jwg
April 13, 2011 at 2:09 pmBeautiful! I like blown eggs because they never rot. And I bet the glue, even if it is diluted, makes them stronger. My favorite thing to dye them with is colored tissue, the stuff that bleeds. Dip the shells in water, or use a very wet brush, stick on bits of tissue, wait a few minutes and remove the tissue. This stains hands but that’s what baking soda is for. Some colors work better than others and that varies from brand to brans.
Mel
April 13, 2011 at 2:53 pmBeautiful eggs! I also wanted to say that your blog is such a great resource. We have a couple of friends come over for a “preschool” and the 5-year olds had requested painting for our next get-together. We did a couple of your watercolor projects this morning (butterflies on coffee filters, gluing tissue paper on paper and finishing off with watercolors) and we had a wonderful time. Thank you!
megwrites
April 13, 2011 at 11:33 amThese look lovely!
rae
April 13, 2011 at 10:23 pmthey are gorgeous!! i got a good giggle out of your close up confession. ;)
Carrie @Rhubarb Sky
April 13, 2011 at 10:26 pmOh, wow, *I* was going to ask the same question!!! Crazy cute! Thanks for responding with the link!
Jean Van't Hul
April 13, 2011 at 7:48 pmThe oil pastels don’t require much pressure to apply, so are fine. I think crayons might be more difficult because you do need to apply more pressure and risk cracking the eggs.
Jean Van't Hul
April 13, 2011 at 7:50 pmOh, and for your 2 year old and scissors. Try offering strips of paper that you pre-cut and let her cut the strips into little pieces. Also, you can make long snakes out of playdough and let her cut those into pieces — actually a bit easier than paper so a good beginning cutting activity.
Jean Van't Hul
April 13, 2011 at 7:51 pmGlad the issue is resolved!
Jean Van't Hul
April 13, 2011 at 7:52 pmHere’s my post about that cloak!
http://artfulparent.typepad.com/artfulparent/2010/05/a-cloak-and-some-artful-ideas-around-the-web.html
Jean Van't Hul
April 13, 2011 at 7:53 pmWe’ve done that, too! And love it! Here’s the post:
http://artfulparent.typepad.com/artfulparent/2009/04/bleeding-tissue-paper-easter-eggs-and-art.html
Jean Van't Hul
April 13, 2011 at 7:54 pmYay! Sounds fun. I’m glad you’ve been able to find some fun ideas here to do with the kids.
Jean Van't Hul
April 13, 2011 at 7:54 pmThanks for all the lovely comments, everyone!
Alisha
April 14, 2011 at 12:32 amI’m sure you’ve heard something like this a million times, but it’s so cool that your daughters get to live in this magical world of creativity and art making. Having you as a mom would have been a dream when I was her age. Then again, it’s probably all she’s ever known, so doesn’t get how awesome it is. ;)
Berceste
April 14, 2011 at 9:17 amThank you soooo much!
Jackie
April 14, 2011 at 9:41 pmFabulously fun project! Thanks for sharing!
Jamie Reimer
April 19, 2011 at 10:08 pmDarnit, I wish I would’ve seen this post before I posted my collaboration of ideas for decorating eggs! These are gorgeous! I’m sharing on FB! :)
Jamie
MaryLea @ pink and green mama
April 19, 2011 at 10:44 pmSo beautiful Jean!!
Yet another reason why I wished we lived closer and could get together for artsy play dates!! You’re not a bad mama for photographing your own stuff, you were busy hosting crafty little people — it’s more important that they had fun making art than getting the final photos! : )
Did you see our decoupaged napkin eggs today? I really like the way you mixed the napkins WITH the dyed eggs, we just wrapped ours in napkins.
But…I am posting our tie-dye egg dyeing technique on Thursday!! : )
xoxo
pink and green mama,
MaryLea
Kat_Shoshin
April 23, 2011 at 11:58 amMy son saw this blog post and was happy to dye his eggs like these kids, but then was confused… where was his cloak? He was getting one to go easter egg hunting with, right?
Long story short, he persisted and begged and didn’t forget – we went and bought very similar fabric in a moss green and now he will have one for Easter. I just wish we could have used re-purposed fabric I had lying around the house too!