Just Paint It: Faux Gilded Easter Eggs

I wanted to try something a little different this year for Easter. The funny thing is, gold wasn’t even on my radar. Browsing thru Pinterest and Google, nothing really intrigued me.

Oh, there are plenty of cute egg decorating ideas, but nothing that challenged me. After last years’ faux alabaster eggs I was looking for something with a similar wow-factor.

And I don’t mean wow-this-takes-a-lot-longer-than-I-thought.

I finally found what I thought was a fantastic collage of 30 or so Easter eggs, all decorated differently. Tucked inside the round up was a beautiful gilded egg. Only one problem.

No instructions. (I sometimes forget that every blogger isn’t a DIY blogger.)

She did post photos though and, curious, I read through all of the comments on the post. Sometimes you can learn a lot by reading through comments. Like this time. She mentioned she bought the faux gold leaf sheets at Michael’s in a kit. Another commenter mentioned that she had bought the same kit, but didn’t like how the eggs were left tacky.

Hmmm. I liked the gilded look a lot and figured there had to be an easier and less tacky way (pardon the pun) to get the look. Now I was intrigued.

Turns out, these were incredibly easy. All you need is the right product.

Supply List

Eggs
Craft paint
Brass Liquid Gilding
Sea Sponge

I used papier mache eggs but this will work on hard-boiled eggs too.

Basecoat your eggs and let dry. I used Folk Art Enamel, which covered nicely in one coat. Any craft paint will work but you might need 2-3 coats.

Dampen the sea sponge with water. Dip in small amount of Liquid Gilding and pounce onto egg, rotating the sponge to get different textures.

Of course you have to let one side dry before applying the gold to the other side, but it only takes a few minutes.

Even though the label says “Brass” the liquid gilding has a nice gold appearance. Regular gold craft paint won’t give you this effect because metallics need a few coats to get this bright, opaque finish.

Another thing about the liquid gilding – it’s not water-based so you need mineral spirits or nail polish remover for clean up. I used Goo Gone and it worked fine.

Oh, and avoid pouring the gilding onto a foam plate. Trust me on this one. Although, it was pretty cool to see the gold start bubbling up. And then Poof! The plate magically disappears wherever the gilding was.

ahem. Good thing I had the plate on an old work table.