Learn to how to make hobnail Easter eggs inspired by vintage McCoy Pottery and hobnail art glass and milk glass. Paint the eggs in pastel colors and display them alongside your favorite vintage collections.
Lately, I’ve been looking to my vintage collections for crafting inspiration. My colorful McCoy pottery vases and flower pots were the inspiration for these hobnail Easter eggs.
These were so simple to make, and I love how the pastel eggs coordinate with my pottery collection.
They’re also the perfect complement to my handpainted chinoiserie Easter egg from Mason Brookes Design.
The beautiful egg deserves a closeup!
You can scroll ahead for the instructions on how to make the hobnail eggs. But I thought you might want to learn a little bit more about the inspiration, as well.
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Hobnail Pottery & Glassware
Hobnail was a popular pattern in pottery and glassware, beginning around the 1940s.
McCoy Pottery introduced its hobnail line in 1940, and it’s one of the company’s highly collectible patterns. The earliest pieces featured a matte finish in a variety of pastel colors, including aqua, blue, pink and yellow.
Later, McCoy Pottery introduced hobnail designs in white and glossier green and yellow glazes.
Shop for Vintage Hobnail Pottery & Glassware
Raised hobnail patterns were also popular among glassmakers like Fenton. The company produced an array of colorful art glass vases, baskets. candy dishes, trinket boxes and more in the hobnail pattern.
You’ll also find hobnail designs on vintage milk glass. (Be sure to check out my post about how I made some faux vintage milk glass pieces using resin. It’s one of my vintage-inspired craft projects.)
How to Make Hobnail Easter Eggs
Can you guess what I used to create hobnail details on the Easter eggs?
I tried a couple of different techniques, including using dimensional paint, before coming up with a much better and easier method.
I used self-adhesive pearls in varying sizes to make the hobnails on the Easter eggs.
Supplies for Hobnail Easter Eggs
- Craft eggs – I tried out this project using both craft eggs and paper mache eggs. Both work, but I preferred the look of the plastic craft eggs. These are the larger craft eggs I used from Michael’s. You can also find smaller eggs here.
- Self-adhesive pearls – These are the pearls I used. They come in a set that includes different sizes. Since you’ll be spray painting the eggs, you can use any color pearls.
- Spray paint – I used many of the same colors I used for the faux milk glass for this project, including Montana Cans Gold in Malachite Light, Rust-Oleum Painter’s Touch 2X Ultra Cover in Gloss Spa Blue, Rust-Oleum Painter’s Touch 2X Ultra Cover in High Gloss Turquoise Sky and Rust-Oleum Painter’s Touch 2X Ultra Cover in Satin Vintage Teal.
Making the Vintage Pottery Style Eggs
- Determine your design.
There are many different patterns you can use when applying the pearls. I like either using only large pearls or applying them in a graduated pattern, from smallest to largest.
You can also apply them in a pattern, alternating small and large pearls. Or you can apply them randomly, all over the egg.
- Apply the pearls.
Peel a pearl off the plastic back and place onto the egg, pressing firmly.
I liked working from the top — or smaller end of the egg — toward the bottom. So my eggs would sit upright in an egg holder, I did not add pearls to the very bottom.
To keep my design uniform, I started off with 4 rows of the same pattern, one on each side of egg. Then, I filled in between those with more pearls, staggering the design. My goals was to not have two pearls side by side on the same horizontal plane.
- Paint the eggs
Once you have applied all the pearls to the eggs in a pattern or design that you like, paint them with several light coats of spray paint.
Allow the paint to dry completely between coats and before rotating the eggs to paint the other side.
Make sure you are using spray paint that is designed to be used on plastic so it will adhere to the eggs and the adhesive pearls.
More Easter Crafts
If you liked this project, you may enjoy these other Easter egg crafts.
Pin This! DIY Hobnail Easter Eggs
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