DIY Resurrection Eggs: Tell the Easter Story

Are you familiar with resurrection eggs? They’re plastic Easter eggs that contain items that tell the story of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. You can buy them or make your own. My mom made her own when my brother and I were little – long before they had them for sale. Every year I think about making a set of eggs, and every year we have a toddler around who will want to open the eggs constantly and lose the items (I’d like to display them on the table). Well, this year I finally came up with a solution – wooden eggs with a picture on them!

I’ve been seeing wooden Easter eggs on Pinterest, like this gorgeous set from Fun at Home with Kids, and I love the look and feel of wooden eggs. However, I’ve been stuck on how to do the picture on each egg. I saw a post go by on Pinterest about decorating wooden eggs with wood burning, and I decided that that might be just the thing!

Wood burning definitely takes some time, but I’m so happy with how these came out.

If you look at resurrection eggs online, each set varies a little. Here are the images that I included on my eggs.

#1. A palm branch (or is that a fern?) – The Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.

#2. Bread and wine – The Last Supper and the institution of The Lord’s Supper.

#3. Lamb – Jesus became our Passover Lamb.

#4. Money bag – Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

#5. Sword – Judas led an angry mob of Jewish leaders to Jesus in the garden, and Peter cut off the ear of the High Priest’s slave. Jesus healed the ear.

#6. Crown of Thorns.

#7. Nails – Jesus was nailed to the cross.

#8. Garment – the Jews cast lots for Jesus’ clothes, which fulfilled prophecy.

#9. Cross – the crucifixion.

#10. The temple veil – the veil was torn in two from top to bottom at Jesus’ death.

#11. Three crosses – two criminals were crucified next to Jesus.

#12. The empty tomb. He is risen!

How I Made the Eggs:

I bought unfinished wooden eggs at Hobby Lobby. They were in the regular wood crafting section, not the Easter section.

I drew the pictures on the eggs with a pencil first and then used a wood burning tool. I don’t have very much experience with a wood burner, and I will say that it took a lot longer than I expected it to! Wood burning must be done slowly. I spent about 2 hours on that part of this project, but I’m 36 weeks pregnant and trying not to go into labor yet, so sitting still was totally on my agenda for that day!

Here’s how they looked after the wood burning:

I had planned to paint each egg with diluted water color paint, but I was worried about losing the detail of the wood burning. Still, they needed some color. My husband suggested painting the rest of the egg, but leaving the picture unpainted. Great idea!

For the paint, I used this set of higher quality watercolors from Hobby Lobby. (As in, higher quality than the Crayola watercolors we have!)

The paints are a thick liquid that comes in tubes. You squirt out a little and add water to it. For the blue color, I mixed blue and a little white as the blue that came with the set was a little too dark.

The finished eggs looked great, but I wanted to seal them since watercolor paints will come off if they get wet. For a sealant, I used Rust-oleum Painter’s Touch Ultra Cover in a clear matte finish. When I sprayed the eggs, the watercolors did bleed a little, giving the eggs a slightly uneven look. I still think they look great, but just be aware that this will happen!

Our eggs are displayed on the kitchen table so that we can look at them and talk about them over the next couple of weeks. We will read the story of Jesus’ crucifixion in each of the gospels. I’m not planning specific devotions to go with each egg since baby girl will be arriving at any time, but the story elements overlap quite a bit anyway.

Where to find the supplies:

(These are Amazon affiliate links, meaning that if you purchase through the links I will earn a small percentage of the sale at no additional cost to you.)

If crafting is not your thing, you can find Resurrection Eggs on Amazon – definitely the easier way to go!

These wooden eggs are the same size as what I used. They come in packages of 5 – I’d get 3 packs and have some extras in case of bloopers… I needed my extra pack!

Here is a good basic set of watercolors – Reeves 12 ml Watercolors, 12 colors. If you have Hobby Lobby near you, the set I bought there was cheaper at $7.99, plus I used a coupon.

You’ll also need a wood burning pen like this one.

And here is the Rust-oleum spray that I used.