Activities & Days Out / 15 March, 2020 / Nanny Anita

Marbled Easter Eggs

In my search to find new ways to decorate eggs I tried to marble them using marbling ink, which turned out to be a big failure.  Then I remembered a few years a go I used nail polish to decorate some mugs for some Christmas presents, which turned out really nicely. So why not try the same technique on eggs. This can be tricky to begin with as you need to be quick, and your hands will get extremely messy, but it was a lot of fun to make them with EC and YC.

Make sure you follow my Easter board on Pinterest for more ideas.  Don’t forget to save the pin for later. 

You will need:

• Nail polish*
• A container
• Water
• Hard boiled eggs
• Toothpicks

* If you have any colours that have very little left in them or ones no longer use, then this is the perfect opportunity to use them up.

We used white duck eggs for this, normal brown hens eggs will work just as well, but I prefer having the white background to work with. I hard boiled them for about 10 minutes and then put them in cold water to cool down, so that they wouldn’t burn little fingers.

Fill a container (one that you don’t mind getting messy) up with water. The temperature has to be just right for this to work properly, you don’t want it being too cold or too hot as the nail polish won’t separate properly. You can test the water by dripping some nail polish in; if it falls to the bottom in a ball then you need to change the temperate, it should start moving across the surface of the water.

When you are ready to start adding the colour make sure that you have the ones you want to use close at hand with the tops off. Once the nail polish hits the water it will start to harden and form a skin, if you take too long it won’t work.

Drip the colours into the water and then use the toothpick to swirl them around.

As soon as that is done dip and roll the egg over the water, the nail polish should stick to the surface of the egg. You can keep dipping the egg in until all the egg is covered. If you hold the at the top and bottom you will get the best results, and create the least amount of mess, but that is quite hard for children with small hands to do, so be prepared with lots of nail polish remover.

Once you have finished your egg, pat it dry and place it back in the egg carton to dry properly. Dip the toothpick in the water and swirl it around to collect any left over nail polish; this part is really cool to do as the nail polish comes off like milk skin on a hot drink.

At first EC didn’t want to join in, but as soon as he saw YC having a go he grabbed his apron and came and joined us. YC was very reluctant to get her hands dirty at first, but decided in the end that it was quite fun to do. They not only enjoyed decorating the eggs, but also playing with the nail polish that had sunk to the bottom of their bowls.

YC enjoying getting her hands dirty.

I would highly recommend that you do this activity in a well ventilated room, or outside, as the fumes of the nail polish can be rather strong. Also, I advise against eating the eggs, these ones are purely for decoration.

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