DIY The Very Hungry Caterpillar Easter Eggs

Create Easter eggs inspired by Eric Carle and The Very Hungry Caterpillar! These collage eggs use painted tissue paper to create fun designs and patterns! A fun craft to do with kids!

Hello Crafty Friends! With Easter around the corner we have started getting ready by decorating Easter eggs. I usually buy a kit from the store and dye them, but this year I wanted to try something different and also involve my little one. These DIY The Very Hungry Caterpillar Easter eggs were so much fun to make.

Eric Carle is one of our favorite authors and we especially love his collage illustrations. After watching a video with my son on how he creates his collages using paint and tissue paper, I thought it would be fun to try making Easter eggs in his style. 

My son helped me paint the tissue paper and loved using different materials like sponges to make patterns in the paint. When all of our tissue paper was painted, I decoupaged it onto the eggs and voila! – bright, fun, and cheerful eggs ready for Easter.

This was a fun project to do with my little one on a very rainy day! I just wish I had used wooden or paper mâché eggs instead of hard boiled eggs so we could have saved them.

The Hungry Caterpillar Easter Eggs

Supplies Needed

• Hard boiled eggs – or use wooden eggs so you can save them!
• White tissue paper
• Paint (we used Crayola washable kid’s paints in classic colors)
• Paper plates to hold the paint
• Mod Podge
• Scissors
• Paint brushes and other pattern/distressing tools
• Hole punch (for decorating)
• Eric Carle inspiration! We used our Eric Carle flashcards.

Step by Step Tutorial

STEP 1: Grab inspiration from The Very Hungry Caterpillar and other Eric Carle books!

We have lots of Eric Carle things around the house so it was easy to be inspired. We used our Eric Carle flashcards as inspiration for all the different patterns. The key to getting the look is lots of layers!

STEP 2: Paint the tissue paper.

Paint the white tissue paper with lots of layers. You can let the paper dry in-between the layers or layer the paint wet. Use lots of different things around your house to create textures.

I ended up using different sized paint brushes, a sponge, pencil erasers for dotting, and a toothpick for dragging through the paint. I put a piece of computer paper under my tissue paper to catch any paint that may bleed through. Make sure to lift the tissue paper up after each layer so it doesn’t stick!

I had a huge sheet of paper set up to lay the tissue paper sheets on in-between layers.

My son helped by painting three sheets of tissue paper himself! I put washable paint on paper plates and let him have so much fun. He loved using the sponge.

STEP 3: Decoupage the eggs with the painted tissue paper!

Once the painted tissue paper had dried, we tore the tissue paper into tiny pieces. I covered each egg in Mod Podge and then stuck the torn pieces of tissue paper randomly on the egg until it was covered. Add more Mod Podge as you go. Kids will have a lot of fun doing this since anything goes and you don’t have to be precise. 

If you want to get extra fancy you can make little collage pictures on the eggs just like Eric Carle does in his illustrations!

For these eggs, I cut out the pieces of tissue paper and applied them the same way I did on the other eggs – except this took longer and took some patience working with such tiny pieces of tissue paper!

STEP 4: Let your eggs dry!

I let the eggs dry overnight and then they were ready to be displayed. 

I love the way the eggs turned out and they definitely brightened up our house yesterday -despite the gloomy rain we were having! What do you think? Fun alternative to dying eggs?

Check out my other fun Harry Potter-themed Easter eggs.

If you love The Very Hungry Caterpillar, try making a DIY Hungry Caterpillar marker holder!