mermaid easter eggs

The best thing that happened to my creative process has been becoming a mom! Lucy and her interests and ideas have become a big part of my inspiration. For the past 5 years, I have a little tradition of decorating Easter eggs in creative and unique ways and this year when I sat down to brainstorm ideas, I found myself totally inspired by Lucy and her current obsession with mermaids. I couldn't resist transforming eggs into mermaids!

A project like this calls for a little practice and planning so I started out drawing some simple whimsical faces. A face is actually much easier than most people thing, especially a simple one. Here are a few tips:

There are all kinds of ways to draw a face and the best part about drawing in a whimsical style is that pretty much anything goes! You can keep it VERY simple with just dots and lines for eyes, nose and mouth OR you can get more detailed and stylized with the features.

Drawing a face is really like a formula and once you get that formula down you can mix it up and get really creative. Start by dividing the face with a line down the middle, a line at the top for eyes, a line for the bottom of the nose and a line for the mouth. 

Play with different shapes and sizes of eyes, nose and mouth.

Use unexpected color in different places to add extra whimsy.

Once I warmed up with drawing faces, I jumped into painting my eggs. 

FYI- I like using real eggs that I blow out (I remove the yolk by poking a hole in each end and then blow the yolk out). 

First I painted a quick layer of solid color- I used different shades of pink.

Next, I lightly drew the mermaid's features then I filled them in with paint.

After the paint was dry, I used a permanent pen to outline everything.

Last, I used scraps of paper to make a crown and mermaid tail that I glued to the eggs.

The result are whimsical mermaids perfect for any Easter celebration that involves a mermaid obsessed three- year old!

Looking for more egg decorating inspiration? 

Have a look at all the tutorials I've shared over the years!

1. watercolor eggs 2. everyday decorated eggs 3. doodle eggs 4. colorful canvas eggs 5. scrappy little eggs 6.eggs and nest 7. altered plastic eggs 8. whimsical eggs 9. speckled eggs 10. geometric eggs 11. butterfly eggs

speckled eggs

I love using dots in my creative projects- big dots, little dots, polka dots! Dots are a very fast and easy way to embellish Easter eggs. I gathered some of my favorite materials and went to work covering my eggs with all kinds of simple dots.

a watersoluble pencil

permanent pens

paint pens

3-D paint

watercolor easter eggs

An easy way to create unique and colorful Easter eggs is using watercolors. Keep in mind this is not a permanent color option like dye but it is clean, fun and you can achieve all kinds really cools effects.

I started with eggs that had been hard boiled and a set of Crayola watercolors.

I painted a wash of color all over the surface of the egg

and while the paint was still wet I added shapes (leaves) and let the color drip a little.

I pulled out my watercolor pencils. If you haven't used watercolor pencils (or water soluble pencils)- they are pretty darn cool. They are like a colored pencil but after you draw on the surface, you can run a wet paint brush over them the color is dispersed and it turns into more of a watercolor wash. I also like drawing with them on a surface that is wet.

I used my watercolor pencils to draw on the wet surface. When you draw on a wet surface it almost feels like the pencil is melting. The result is a rich and soft line that is great for details.

I added some scribbles and messy writing throughout the surface

and let dry.

I created all kinds of eggs in different colors with a variety of patterns and simple designs.