DIY Chinoiserie Easter Eggs On Candle Holders

It has become a tradition for me to decorate Easter eggs in a different way each year and I truly enjoy finding new ideas every single time. To make this dozen blue and white Chinoiserie eggs, I used a not so modern technique, but I hope that you’ll agree with me that they turned out looking amazingly elegant and very stylish.

In the past, I’ve used many ways to showcase my Easter eggs, but this year, I decided that these Chinoiserie eggs were so precious that they deserved the very best, so I elevated them (literally) by placing each of them on a silver candle holder.

The eggs are decorated with the method of découpage ~ an extremely easy technique. I think that découpage was my very first craft project ever, and even as a beginner almost two decades ago, I had great success in decorating a couple of wood boxes ~ it’s really a project that any new crafter would enjoy.

Candle holders of different heights are ideal for holding decorated Easter eggs; because of my Greek origin, I have quite a few silver candle holders (note: silver is relatively inexpensive in Greece – if you ever travel to Greece, keep in mind that buying silver jewelry and other silver home items should be on your tourist to-do list). 

But even in the U.S., I’ve found silver and silver plated items at very reasonable prices in antique and thrift shops quite often. If you don’t want to spend much, you can use candle holders made of glass or brass. You can also use items that you already have at home, such as round napkin rings (either metallic, marble or wood). You could also consider using glass vases with a narrow rim. And, as a totally inexpensive alternative, you could elevate the Easter eggs on glass jars (the smaller jars from your spices), as I propose on this Christmas blog post.

For my Easter projects, I’ve always used real eggs, but this year I also got plastic ones as I needed bigger eggs for the taller candle holders and smaller eggs to fit the  mini angel candle holders.

I found the bigger plastic eggs at the craft store and they were perfect because they had a matte, non-shiny finish, and they were just the right size – about 4 inches (10 cm) tall. They needed no prep at all! I combined them with a couple of smaller colored plastic eggs and one jumbo plastic egg (the kind that you would buy at the supermarket that’s filled with candy – not shown on the photo below) that I found in my Easter supplies from previous years.

I also used a couple of blown-out real eggs as I needed medium size eggs, too.

I painted the colored eggs, white.

I purchased blue & white Chinoiserie paper napkins online, and I cut out the motifs, as such. I used smaller cut-outs for the smaller eggs and a combination of small and large cut-outs for the larger eggs.

The napkins I found were 3-ply, and I removed the lower layer.

I applied a small quantity of matte découpage glue on the egg,

and I positioned the motif, directly on the egg, smoothing it from the middle out with my fingers, trying to eliminate as many wrinkles as possible. Even if the eggs didn’t turn out totally wrinkle-free, I thought it was okay ~ I don’t mind the little texture that the wrinkles add.

The eggs can either be covered partially with just one or a few motifs, leaving small or large white areas.

Or they can be covered entirely, with the motifs overlapping one on top of each other and leaving absolutely no white egg backdrop, like this jumbo sized one below. In that case, it’s not a good idea to wrap an entire napkin around the egg. Instead, it’s better to apply one motif at a time, using bigger motifs and filling the gaps with smaller ones such as small flowers or leaves.

The one thing I made sure of was to handle the eggs with clean, dry and glue-free hands every time, so it’s a project that is best to take place in the kitchen. It also requires a little patience as it is worth waiting for each cut-out to dry completely (about 30′) before attempting to add another motif onto the egg. My kitchen was a real mess for about two days, but the result is so rewarding!

If you have a difficult time finding paper napkins in blue and white Chinoiserie, you may be able to find Chinoiserie wrapping paper or fabric. I’ve also spotted pink and white Chinoiserie paper napkins that I thought were pretty cool, too ~ maybe for next year.

You can’t go wrong with Chinoiserie, it’s absolutely beautiful, has been in style for many years and still is right now.

Happy Easter!