How to create beautiful Easter eggs using pretty pastel paint and gold leaf
I’ve always loved pretty Easter eggs. Typically decorated in the pale and pretty pastel colours that springtime is known for, Easter eggs herald a new season and just make me happy.
So I decided to try my hand at an Easter craft this year. There are so many pretty ways to decorate Easter eggs – I had lots of options! I finally settled on gold leaf Easter eggs which are so pretty. Follow these simple instructions to create your own beautiful eggs this Easter.
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Easter craft: Gold leaf Easter eggs
What you'll need
Materials Craft paint (I used Martha Stewart Craft Paint) Small paintbrushes Gold Leaf Kit (I used the Speedball Mona Lisa Gold Leaf Kit) Foam brushes (These are the foam brushes I used) Paper plates Newspaper or a disposable tablecloth to cover your work surface
Easter craft: Gold leaf Easter eggs
The eggs
It’s up to you how many you want to decorate. You can either use hard-boiled eggs or if you want your decorations to have more longevity, you can blow them out, though be careful; they’ll be more fragile to work with this way.
Easter craft: Gold leaf Easter eggs
Choosing your paint
This craft is pretty straightforward. I chose 6 colours of paint that I wanted to use and put a bit of each colour onto a paper plate. I painted one half of each egg, then set them down to dry before painting the other side. You could also dye your Easter eggs but I really wanted to achieve a saturated colour, which I felt I could better achieve through painting.
Easter craft: Gold leaf Easter eggs
Painting the eggs
I gave each egg two coats of paint to make sure that they were evenly covered and tried to smooth the paint out as much as possible. For a perfectly smooth finish, you can also spray paint the eggs if you have a well-ventilated area to work in.
Easter craft: Gold leaf Easter eggs
Start the gold leafing
Once the paint has dried, it’s time to start the gold leafing. The kit that I used came with sheets of gold leaf, size and sealer. Taking a fine paintbrush, apply the size (glue) all over the egg in random strokes. You don’t want to cover the entire egg in size because you don’t want the eggs to be completely gold. So apply the size just in the spots where you want the gold leaf to stick.
Easter craft: Gold leaf Easter eggs
Creating an abstract pattern
Hold the egg for about a minute, giving the size time to set. Then, carefully peel away a sheet of gold leaf and wrap the entire egg in it, rubbing it down to make sure it sticks to the spots where you’ve applied size. Take a foam brush and start rubbing away the gold leaf. Anything that’s not stuck to the size will fall right off and the remaining gold leaf will stick to the egg, creating a beautiful, abstract pattern. Because the gold leaf pattern is abstract, it’s really hard to mess up or make a mistake. Now that’s my kind of craft!
Easter craft: Gold leaf Easter eggs
Applying the sealer
Set the eggs down again for about 10 minutes, then take a paintbrush and apply the gold leaf sealer. It’s just a clear finish, sort of like a nail polish topcoat, that will seal the gold leaf into place and give your Easter eggs a lovely shine. Good luck and have fun!
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