This post is sponsored by Minwax.
Over the past year, we’ve really made an effort to simplify the decor in our home and that means holiday decor, too! While we generally go all out for Halloween (we host a big party every year), this past Christmas we went really simple with the decorations and I’m taking it even further for Easter decor. Pastels (aka every Easter decoration) and our home style just don’t mix. At all. So we came up with a simple, easy, and sophisticated DIY Easter project that added a dose of Spring to our living room: Staining wooden Easter eggs!
Wooden Eggs
Minwax Stain(s) of your choice (we used Weather Oak, Classic Gray, Jacobean, Golden Oak, Driftwood, Provincial, Dark Walnut, Simply White and Pickled Oak–these two looked very similar)
Polycrylic Water-Based Protective Finish
Foam Brushes
Latex Gloves (to protect your hands from stain)
Paper Plates
We weren’t so sure about how the wooden eggs would take the stain, but they turned out better than we could have imagined! A few things we learned: Because of the direction of the wood grain in the eggs, horizontally half dipping (like in the photo below) didn’t create a crisp line like it would with regular easter eggs. The stain would seep up, which sometimes looked cool (especially with lighter colors where it looked almost like an ombre), but sometimes looked like a mistake. We had much better, crisp-line success with painting the stain on half-way, vertically.
Another pleasant surprise was every egg had this lighter ring around the center with darker poles–it looks beautiful and really natural!
We repeated each stain color at least once and kept a couple of the eggs plain wood as well. After we were finished staining, we added a coat of Polycrylic (we opted for Satin, but you could go glossier or more matte if you wanted!) to protect the eggs so we could pull them out year after year.
For the final look, I mixed our wooden eggs with some of these moss covered eggs in a bowl on the coffee table. Paired with a vase filled with tulips from the grocery store and we had our simple Easter decor that feels a little more sophisticated than a pile of plastic pastel eggs. (Which we’ll definitely be pulling out for the egg hunt on Saturday.)
All in all, this project took about 30 minutes and I love the way it turned out! All the whimsey, beauty and simplicity of Easter eggs with a lot more longevity and sophistication. Win, win, win.
Do you decorate for Easter at your house? I’m always pleasantly surprised with how far a few spring flowers from the grocery store liven up a room and they’re so budget-friendly, too!
Eager for more Easter? Check out these posts!
20 Non-Candy Easter Basket Ideas
24 Chic and Sweet Easter Baskets
Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Maple and Bacon Vinaigrette
Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Kale and Prosciutto
Our wood grain Shaker cabinet fronts were designed for busy, high-traffic homes like ours. Clad with durable textured thermofoils, this line is compatible with Sektion, Akurum, Godmorgon, and Besta cabinets from IKEA. It's the perfect, practical way to add the warmth of wood to all the rooms of your home.
We have teamed up with Loloi to create a line of rugs that are as affordable as they are beautiful. This collection houses a great mix of traditional and modern rugs, in cottage-y colorways, as well as vintage-inspired beauties that you’ll want to roll out in every room.
We partnered with Stuga on a line of hardwood floors — The Ingrid is really livable, and the color is very neutral. It doesn’t lean warm or cool, it’s that just right in-between. We have really loved putting it everywhere in our house. It’s the best jumping-off point for design, no matter your interior style. In addition to being beautiful, Ingrid is really durable — we have three kids, and we always have a home construction project going on. Ingrid stands up to it all.
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Hi Chris and Julia. These stained wooden eggs are just beautiful. I will be attempting my own cement Easter eggs this weekend, and am considering staining some of them as well. Thank you for the idea!
Do you have any tutorial on how to stain a piece of wood? Also, are you planning to add more tutorials?
We’re always adding more tutorials. The best way to find what you’re looking for is our search bar
Love the eggs, but I was really wondering about the white vase. Is there a link somewhere for it?
It’s from right here!
These are lovely! It’s extra dreary here in Dallas so my husband and I are making these tonight. Easy breezy to get everything together with Amazon same-day shipping! Thank you for the detailed instructions and watch outs with the stain “bleeding” with the grain.
Very cute!
They have very similar wooden eggs in the Target dollar section. I bough a pack for my kids to paint but never thought of painting them myself!
Love this. Where is your basket from?
Target!
Love this! Pastels are definitely not my thing and I often find myself skipping decorations for Easter because I can’t find simple and sophisticated decor. Thanks for the tutorial!
A craft project using wood stain on your wood table with no protection?! AHH! It makes me anxious just to look at the picture- You’re much braver than I am! :)
Beautiful eggs!
I love this! What a fun project for my pre-teens and teens…and then I get to enjoy the more sophisticated look!
I made concrete eggs for much the same reasons:
http://heim-elich.blogspot.de/search?q=eier
Greetings from Germany