Printable Easter Egg Play Dough Mats

Two things I absolutely adore? Play dough and celebrating special days with my kiddos! It’s therefore no surprise that I often combine the two. In the past, we've celebrated the arrival of spring with a spring garden play dough set, Canada Day with a Canadian wilderness play dough set and summer vacation with sand play dough paired with beach treasures. The list could go on, but with Easter quickly approaching, I thought I’d share these fun printable Easter egg play dough mats, which double just as well as colouring pages. 

A few years ago, I came across the awesome idea of pairing play dough-filled plastic eggs with laminated Easter egg mats and we’ve been hooked ever since!  In fact, it’s something we do as a family every Easter weekend. Yup, even my husband and I get in on the fun!

To switch things up a little, each year I draw a few new Easter egg designs to add to our collection, and this year is no different. This time we’ve got bold spring flowers, a few little hearts and two classics — stripes and polka dots. You can download and print the eggs just below, but let me show you what we do with them too.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• our printable PDF Easter eggs
• scissors
• self-sealing laminating pouches (or thermal laminating pouches if you have a laminator at home)
• a big batch of white play dough (find our favourite recipe here)
• food colouring or liquid watercolours
• some plastic eggs in a variety of colours (I like to use the bigger ones)

Alright, let’s get started, shall we? First off, divide your white play dough into as many equal chunks as you have plastic eggs. Then use your liquid watercolours or food colouring to colour each ball of dough a lovely spring pastel colour. I personally get a kick out of matching our dough balls to our plastic eggs, but that’s just me! You can make whichever colours your little heart desires.

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Knead the dough really well to fully incorporate the colour and then fill the eggs with the dough. One thing to note is that most plastic Easter eggs are not super airtight. In fact, many have little holes at the top and/or bottom. You can cover the holes with a small piece of clear sticky tape if you wish, but either way, I suggest keeping the play dough eggs in an airtight bag or container to keep your dough fresh for as long as possible.

With our dough prepped and ready to go, it’s time to prepare our play mats. First, print off our PDF Easter egg play dough mats and cut each egg out. I like to leave a small white border along the edges, but you can cut right along the black line if you prefer. 

Next, place each egg into a laminating pouch and follow the instructions provided. I love our little home laminator, but self-adhesive laminating pouches are incredibly easy to use and are now stocked in several dollar stores which makes them super affordable, too.

When they’re ready, cut out each of your laminated eggs leaving a decent amount of lamination around the outside of your egg. This will ensure that everything stays sealed and in place.

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And that’s it — your play dough and Easter egg mats and done and ready to be used.

Now how you use them is up to you. A set like this would make for a lovely addition to an Easter basket, but it would also be a great play invitation to leave out for your kiddos to discover one morning during Easter weekend. That, or it would be a fantastic little set to bring along to a family dinner to keep the kiddos entertained before mealtime.

Whenever you choose to use them, imagine your play dough sort of being like your markers or crayons and decorate the eggs simply by sticking the dough right onto the mats.

There’s really no right or wrong way to do this — simply dive in and enjoy the process!

And don’t forget — while these printable Easter eggs make lovely play dough mats, they make equally lovely colouring pages when printed out and left unlaminated. Simply pair them with some pastels, markers, crayons or pencil crayons and you’ve got a totally different activity on your hands! Or, if you really want to make things interesting, colour the laminated versions using whiteboard markers.

Either way, enjoy and happy Easter!