Pysanky Eggs

I have always wanted to try my hand at pysanky.  It's an Ukrainian egg dying technique in which you use layers of wax to act as a resist for each layer of dye.  Mom and I dropped in at a local shop called Pinecones & Needles.  It's an awesome little store run by a lovely woman named Anne:

She taught Mom and me the pysanky basics and let us go!

You heat the kistka in the flame and then place it in the beeswax (the heated kistka melts the beeswax and fills the kistka's cup) and then draw on the egg.

Once you're ready, it goes in the first dye bath.

And then you add the next layer of wax.

This process continues and the colors get darker and the egg becomes more encrusted.

Finally, you have eggs that are covered in wax and dye.

You have to wait about an hour and then you melt the wax off of the eggs to reveal the layers of color!

I really loved the whole very long -- almost 2 hours per egg -- process.  I can't wait to try this process again with what I know now!

Thanks for stopping by!