I love incorporating sensory play or educational activities into our crafts, and today’s Easter Egg Puffy Paint Banner involves both! Plus, it serves as a budget-friendly Easter decoration when the kids are done.

DIY Puffy Paint Easter Craft

I find that starting Ella’s day with some kind of craft or sensory activity makes a huge difference in her ability to to focus and put all her energy to good use.

However, first thing in the morning I also have daycare children arriving so the crafts I offer her need to be simple, quick to prepare, and not need a lot of adult assistance, as I’m often busy getting breakfast ready and helping the children get into our morning routines.

This Easter Egg craft made with homemade puffy paints was perfect!

Not only is the DIY puffy paint super easy to whip up (just three ingredients), there really is no wrong way to do this craft. It’s very open-ended – simply cut out your egg shapes and decorate as desired!

What I really like about this recipe compared to other DIY puffy paints is that it doesn’t involve using the microwave; other DIY puffy paints that I’ve seen use flour and require you to put the finished product in the microwave for the “puffing” effect. Having the paint be puffy when the kids are painting allows them to have more control of their finished product and also adds that sensory element to the painting process.

While we used our puffy paints to decorate paper “eggs,” this paint can be used on plain cardstock or cardboard to make 3D pictures, it can be used to make a pretty Easter card, or you can even make a 3D Easter wreath using a paper plate with the center cut out.

Initially, I had just planned on making these flat eggs, but we had some ribbon left over from our Spring Waldorf hand kites and I thought displaying the kids’ artwork in the form of an Easter banner would be perfect.

The DIY puffy paint can smoosh or flake if not handled with care, but we haven’t had any issues with gentle handling. I don’t think this banner will last in storage but it’s a pretty addition to our living room for the season.

Because I have a Montessori set-up, we used our metal insets to trace and draw the egg shapes. (If you’re interested, you can check out our sensorial materials here – we previously owned this plastic set of insets and they were great.) An oval stencil would also work great for having kids work on their fine motor skills (tracing and cutting) or you can prepare the oval shapes yourself ahead of time.

Homemade puffy paint has a fun, squishy and sticky texture that the kids can’t help but want to explore, so I just let them and keep wet clothes or baby wipes on hand to prevent sticky homemade puffy paint from getting everywhere.

This Easter puffy paint craft is one of the 32 recipes, crafts and decor ideas included in our free Easter Planning Ebook available to our e-mail subscribers:

Check out our quick video to see how easy it is to make your own 3-ingredient puffy paint – and then don’t forget to scroll down to grab your free printable Easter Egg template and recipe card:

Materials to Make DIY Puffy Paint

• Shaving cream (just use the cheapest non-gel shaving cream you can find)
• White glue
• Paint or food dye
• Bowls (one per color)

Tip: you can also add food extracts to make your puffy paint scented.

If you don’t want to make your own puffy paint for this recipe, you can use a store-bought puffy paint instead.

For the banner:

• Oval stencil
• Cardstock or cardboard
• Kid-safe scissors <– these are the ones we use and they’ve lasted us for 6 years. I find kids have a hard time with some safety scissors but these we have no issues with.
• Ribbon
• Hole punch

How to Make Homemade Puffy Paint

Mix together the shaving cream, glue and paint. Add scent, if desired.

You can really play around with this recipe — adding more shaving cream if you want a puffy (more delicate) result, or more glue if you want a firmer, less puffy result. Just be careful not to overmix, as that deflates the paint. It keeps well for a couple of days if covered, but is best used right away.

Have children trace out their oval shapes onto thick paper, cardstock or cardboard.

(If you don’t have metal insets or an oval stencil, you can make an oval cut-out from a piece of cardboard for them to trace.)

Meanwhile, I had set out the oval metal inset from our Montessori language materials, however any oval shape for the kids to trace (or oval cut-out from a piece of cardboard) would work for this activity.

Have the kids trace and cut out their eggs.

Then, let them paint!

Encourage kids to dab on the paint (or “paint lightly”) to keep that wonderful, puffy texture. At first, the kids may just want to explore the unique puffy paint, so have plenty of egg-shaped paper on hand so they can eventually get around to experimenting with different Easter egg designs.

Depending on how thickly they apply the paint, it takes about 4 hours to set and dry.

Once dry, I took this craft a step further and used a regular hole punch to place 1/2″ holes near the top of the Easter egg crafts, and then strung them all on a Spring-coloured ribbon to make a Easter Egg Banner.

Pin this DIY Puffy Paint Craft:

Grab our free printable instructions for this DIY Puffy Paint Easter craft:

The kids loved making their Easter Egg craft with homemade puffy paint, and the Easter Egg Banner is now decorating our living room for Spring!

For more fun Easter activities for kids, check out our Easter Egg Bath Bombs or our 15 Easter Egg Sensory Play Ideas.