How to Make Marble Easter Eggs with Nail Polish

Line a one-gallon bucket or a large bowl with a plastic bag and fill the bucket with lukewarm water. Nail polish can be messy to clean up, so we found it was easier to use a lining that could be thrown away. Choose 2-3 nail polish colors to marble together. We suggest using a brand like Ella + Mila (polishes start from $10.50 on their site) since their nail polishes are all vegan, non-toxic, and cruelty-free (and totally safe for kids to use!). Take the lids off and carefully drip several drops of each nail polish onto the surface of the water: The paint will sit on the surface of the water and may expand into large dots. When you’ve added several drops, use a thin wood skewer or toothpick to swirl the paint into a marble pattern. 

Rather than ruin a good spoon for this project, we found another way to dip the marble Easter eggs into the bucket of water. Bend a piece of craft wire into a spoon shape to make an egg dipper. Balance a ceramic egg (you can also use hard-boiled eggs for this project) and dip the egg into the marbled polish. You’ll need to dip the egg all the way under the layer of nail polish for it to be completely covered. Then pull the egg straight up and out of the water, and set it on a covered surface to dry.

Each time you pour and swirl the nail polish, you should be able to dip 2-3 marble Easter eggs. After that, there won’t be much polish left on the surface and it won’t have a pretty marble pattern anymore. To start over with fresh polish or to swap colors, take a paper towel and run it over the surface of the water; we like to use sustainable tree-free paper towels like the Seedling Paper Towels, $3.95, Grove. The excess nail polish will stick to the paper towel and you’ll be able to pour new polish, re-marble it, and start dipping eggs again. Repeat this process until you’ve marbled as many eggs as you like using different color combinations.

Related: Make Easy Shaving Cream Easter Eggs

When all the marble Easter eggs have been dipped into the nail polish, allow them to dry completely. Since the polish mixture can be heavy in places, we recommend allowing your nail polish Easter eggs to dry for at least 3 hours before using them as pretty Easter decorations or adding them to an Easter basket. Keep in mind that hard-boiled eggs decorated with nail polish aren't edible—use them for decorative purposes only or choose lasting ceramic eggs for this project.