Pysanka Eggs

I said on an earlier post that I had put my collection of Pysanka eggs out on the display shelf outside our front door.

This week I made three more.  As I was dying the first ones I realized I didn't have the pump thingy that blew out the inside of the eggs.  I looked all over but didn't find it.  I may have given it to one daughter and asked her but she had no recollection of it.  First casualty of our move I guess.

I called the company where I purchased my supplies and the egg pump and they said they are no longer being made.  The only thing they had was a device to blow out the eggs with your own breath, so I ordered that and got it in the mail on Friday.

Today I blew out the three eggs I had decorated and now they are doing a final drain and dying out.

I'll add them to the rest next week.

If you're not familiar with how these eggs are decorated, here's a brief overview.

The egg above was first put into yellow so the entire egg is yellow to begin with.

Then I used a stylus of sorts to paint hot melted wax  where ever I wanted yellow to be.  In this egg it was the lattice work.  Then the egg went into green.  I then painted leaves on with the wax and dyed the egg red.  I painted flowers and finally dyed the egg blue.  The wax is removed by slowly melting it in a candle flame and wiping the wax off.  It's the most tedious part of this craft.

I have 12 different colors.  When you dye you start with the lightest color and work to darkest.  With the egg below I started with the white egg and painted on the ducks. Then put the egg in orange and painted the beaks and the cattail tops.  Then dyed green and painted the leaves.  Then dyed it blue and painted the water and ended by dying it brick colored. I should have painted clouds at the beginning but forgot to.

 This egg only was dyed twice: pink then blue.

 I wrote about Pysanka eggs here, too.

I have 9 more jumbo eggs in the refrigerator and have the supplies still out so there may be some more decorating in the weeks ahead of us.

Through My Lens

Ukrainian Eggs or Pysanky

I promised several internet friends I would post photos of the eggs I have been decorating, called pysanka.  My daughter, Emily (Greens and Jeans) introduced me to them last Easter time.  This year I purchased my own supplies from the Ukrainian Gift Shop and have had some fun.

Above and below are the six I've made so far.  I did have a seventh but when I pumped out the innards the side of the shell gave way.  It must have had a crack I didn't see.

Closeups of some of this year's below.

Here's a bowl of the new ones, last year's and some other decorated eggs.

Three of last year's.  The two on the left were done by daughter, Sarah.

If you've never tried these, it is quite a lot of fun. What you do is paint with wax using tiny tools that you heat and collect the wax in.  Wherever the wax is will stay the color you have waxed over.  So where you see white was the first coating of wax.  You then place it in the color to dye and then wax over whatever you want to be that color. You continue progressing from lightest colors to darkest colors.  Once everything is done you place it in a candle flame and melt the wax off.  It's amazing to see your design appear.  The final step is to pump out the egg so you are just left with the shell.  Even with shaky hands like mine you can make some neat designs!  

Happy Easter in three weeks!