A few years ago I was inspired to learn how to decorate blown eggs with my kids so we could keep their colorful egg art year-round. We’ve decorated blown eggs with seven different methods we’re going to share with you today. These blown egg decorating ideas are all versatile and can be used for making decorated Easter eggs, blown egg Christmas ornaments or even blown egg decorations to hang year-round!
People often want to learn how to decorate blown eggs for Easter decorations or how to make blown egg Christmas ornaments. The beauty of decorating blown eggs is that this craft project is so versatile they can be used for any holiday or theme.
You can decorate the blown eggs with Spring colors for Easter or holiday colors for blown egg Christmas ornaments. Or if you’re like my kids, you can decorate the blown eggs in any shades of color and use them to decorate year-round!
My kids love to decorate Easter eggs but always were so devastated when their precious artwork had to be destroyed when the hard boiled eggs were eaten or thrown out if they started to spoil. Now we don’t have that issue when decorating blown eggs.
My 11 year old decorated a blown egg by drawing our family’s dog in colorful permanent markers. This egg doesn’t have a specific holiday theme of colors so she’s using it as a decoration year-round.
When I learned how to do Pysanky on blown eggs in 2016, I made each of my kids a Christmas ornament. I wrote their name and date on the back of the egg in wax resist on one side of the egg. I drew a design in wax resist on the other side of the egg. These Pysanky eggs are now precious handmade ornaments we hang on our Christmas tree each year.
How to blow out an egg
Select an egg that is nicely shaped and doesn’t have any cracks or imperfections. If you’re using eggs from the grocery store this won’t be difficult. Grocery store eggs are typically uniform since they pass through inspections. We have a lot of chickens so we have quite a few farm fresh eggs to chose from. Not all farm fresh eggs are laid looking perfect and uniform in shape.
Keep in mind that if you are planning to decorate your blown out egg, using an egg with a dark egg shell color may make it difficult for dye or marker colors to show up. We try to use the lightest egg colors from our hens such as white, cream, light blue and light brown.
You can blow out an egg with supplies found around your house. If you’re planning to make a lot of blown eggs, I highly recommend buying an egg blowing kit. It is so worth it! (This is the egg blowing kit we have and it’s so easy to use even my kids can blow eggs with it!)
Using an egg blowing kit alleviates having to get winded trying to blow the egg out using your breath through a straw.
Now that you selected your egg, here’s how to blow out an egg:
Step 1:
Carefully poke a hole in the top and bottom of the egg using a sharp point like a nail (our egg blowing kit has a sharp nail mounted in a handy gripper tool), thumbtack, or awl. You can also very carefully drill a hole in the top and bottom of the egg with a handheld power drill and a fine bit. I always hold the egg over the sink for this step just in case it accidentally cracks and breaks. 
Step 2:
Insert a long, thin pin down the top hole of the egg. Wiggle and poke the pin around to scramble the the egg yolk inside. This step makes it much easier to blow out the egg. Our egg blowing kit came with a long pin with a handle on top perfect for this step. If you don’t have a long pin, place a finger over the top and bottom holes on the egg and shake it around to scramble the egg.
Step 3:
Hold the egg over a bowl. If you have an egg blower kit, use the bulb to blow air through the top of the egg. The scrambled egg white and yolk will start to drip from the bottom hole on the egg.
If you don’t have an egg blowing kit bulb, you can use a drinking straw. Line the straw up with the hole on the top of the egg and blow the insides of the egg out the hole on the bottom.
We collect the blown out egg white and yolk in a bowl and cook up a scrambled egg meal for our family when we’re all done decorating our blown egg ornaments.
Step 4:
Rinse the inside of the egg by holding it upright under the water faucet so water can flow into the egg through the hole on the top . Cover the top and bottom hole in the egg and gently shake the egg to swish the water around inside to rinse it out.
Uncover the holes on the egg and gently blow the water out of the egg with the bulb or a straw. Pat the egg dry. Prop the egg upright on a towel to let any excess water drain out.
How to make blown egg ornaments
Here are several different ways we’ve used to decorate a blown egg to make fun, colorful ornaments.
1. Dye Blown Eggs
You can dye blown eggs with packets of store bought dye mix, make homemade natural dyes like we did for our tie dye t-shirt project or you can make your own dye at home using food coloring.
Learning how to dye blown eggs with food coloring is so easy! We opted for making homemade food coloring dye for our blown eggs since the colors are more vibrant than our homemade natural dyes.
Make egg dye with food coloring and vinegar:
Sit out a mug or jar (we use these small wide mouth canning jars), one jar for each color of dye. I sit the jars on the table on top of newspaper to protect the table underneath since the dye will stain. Pour a 1/2 cup of boiling water into each jar. Stir in 1 teaspoon of vinegar and 10-20 drops of food coloring in each jar. You can use the basic colors of the food coloring bottles for the dye colors or mix your own shades by combining colors.
To dye the blown egg:
Gently place the blown egg in the jar of dye. Blown eggs will float because they are hollow. You can gently hold the egg down in the dye with a spoon. Another option that worked well for my kids was letting the blown egg sit on the surface of the dye for 3-5 minutes then gently turning the egg over so the other side is in the dye sitting for 3-5 minutes. When the blown egg is dyed to the color you desire, remove from the jar of dye and pat dry with a rag or paper towel (don’t use your good kitchen towels since the dye does stain!)
2. Dip Dye variations
Dip one end of the blown egg in one color. Dip the other end of the egg in a different color. Experiment with color variations and see what unique blown egg ornaments you come up with!
3. Swirling Dye Colors
My six year old is very tactile and likes to get his hands messy in his art projects. Once he dip dyes his blown eggs, he loves to swirl the dye colors with his fingers (just know your fingers may be dyed with color too!) You can also use a paintbrush to do this if you were looking for a less messy way to swirl the dye colors.
4. Tape Resist Dyed Blown Eggs
Cut thin strips or designs out of painters tape (we keep this wider roll of painters tape in our craft stash since it’s easier to cut designs out of) and place it on the egg. Dye the egg whatever colors you choose then let the dye dry on the blown egg. Carefully remove the strips of tape. Where the tape was stuck will still be the egg shell color and not dyed.
Decorating blown eggs with tape resist is a simpler method of decorating an egg with a similar concept to wax resist Pysanky. If you don’t have the tools to do traditional Pysanky or you’re doing this project with young children, then using tape resist is an easy way to get a similar dyed design resist blown egg.
You won’t be able to get the fine detailed wax resist result like a Pysanky egg, but it’s a fun way to experiment with the concept of resist dying with young kids.
5. Decorating Blown Eggs with Pysanky
Decorating blown eggs with Pysanky is a Ukrainian technique to decorate eggs using wax resist. Melted beeswax designs are applied to a blown egg with a special tool called a Kistka. The eggs are dyed in between wax layers. When finished, the beeswax is melted off to reveal intricate, colorful designs on the eggs.
I took a local class in 2016 to learn how to do Pysanky to decorate blown eggs. The Pysanky class was so fun that I ordered my own Pysanky Kistka tool kit (this is the Pysanky Kistka kit I have) so I could continue to do Pysanky egg decorating at home.
Our Pysanky eggs don’t turn out nearly as beautiful and intricate as the ones featured in Ukrainian Pysanky egg pictures, but my kids and I have fun with it anyway!
The instructor for the Pysanky class I took had us reference the Ukrainian Gift Shop website for ideas on the symbolism of specific Pysanky designs and color. Check out the Ukrainian Gift Shop website to learn the history of Pysanky, how to do Pysanky and the symbolism of designs and color.
When my kids were really young, I didn’t feel comfortable doing Pysanky with them due to the open flame and needing to heat the hot wax in the Kistka tool.
My 11 year old is able to safely use the Pysanky Kistka tools on her own. My six year old opted to draw his designs on his blown egg with a pencil and have me trace over the designs using the hot wax in the Kistka tool. I have a feeling that by next year he’ll have the dexterity and confidence to use the Kistka tools on his own!
6. Decorate Blown Eggs With Markers
Draw on the blown eggs with colorful fine point permanent markers (these permanent markers are great to have in your craft stash since they have so many uses!). You can draw on the blown eggs with permanent markers and then dip them in an egg dye. Or if you draw a very intricate, colorful design on your egg with permanent markers you can skip the egg dye.
7. Painting Blown Eggs
The best paints to use for painting blown eggs are acrylic craft paints. Painting blown eggs with acrylic craft paints results in a vibrant, colorful blown egg ornament.
You can also paint blown eggs with watercolor paints. Using water color paints results in a similar look as dyed eggs except when painting, you have more control over where the colors are placed on the egg.
If you’re looking for a way to decorate blown eggs that’s not very messy, you can use paint markers to decorate blown eggs. My kids have even used tubes of glitter paint to decorate eggs.
How to Hang a Blown Egg
We use two different methods to string a blown egg so it can be hung up as an ornament or decoration (See the picture under number six above for examples of the two styles of blown egg caps we use)
Egg Ornament Cap
When I took a class on how to make Pysanky eggs, the instructor showed us how to glue on metal egg ornament caps (you can find the egg caps here). These are small, metal decorative caps with a loop built into the top to thread string to hang up the blown egg ornament.
To attach the egg ornament cap, put a small dab of hot glue on top of the decorated blown egg and center the egg ornament cap on top of the glue.
Decorative Button Cap
When my kids made decorated blown egg ornaments at their local library art class, they used decorative button caps. This is a fun decorative option, especially if you have a stash of colorful buttons to chose from.
To attach a decorative button cap to a blown egg ornament, select a button and cut a length of string. Thread the string down through two holes on one side of the button. Tie the string ends together.
Glue the button to the top of the decorated blown egg with a dab of hot glue. Make sure you keep the tied ends of the string pulled up from the button while the glue dries.
How to Safely Store Decorated Blown Eggs
Since blown eggs are fragile, they can break easily. The instructor for the Pysanky class I took shared her tip of using an egg carton to safely store decorated blown eggs. This works great!
We cut egg cartons in half width wise to make the cartons easier to pack in a box of holiday decorations. You can also wrap a sheet of bubble wrap around the egg carton for added protection in storage.
When we moved to our new homestead in 2018, I had packed my precious pysanky eggs in an egg carton and packed the carton into a moving box. All that jostling around in the moving process didn’t impact the eggs at all and not a single decorated blown egg was broken!
We also use egg cartons cut in half as trays to work on while decorating blown eggs. We’ve accidentally had a blown egg or two roll off the table and shatter on the floor so we learned that lesson the hard way!
Do you have any other ideas on how to decorate blown eggs? Share your ideas in the comments below!
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