Who doesn’t love gorgeous Easter European style Easter eggs? These stunning eggs, with their delicate designs and tracery, are known as pysanky Easter eggs. And you don’t have to spend a fortune buying pysanky Easter eggs that other people make. Instead, you can skip the boring old monochromatic Easter eggs this holiday season and create your own pysanky Easter eggs.
When it comes to creating pysanky Easter eggs, the supplies that you pick up for your regular Easter eggs are simply not going to cut it. You need special supplies that are made particularly for these pysanky Easter eggs. Don’t worry—they are not going to cost a fortune, but you still do need them. There are particular dyes that you will need to purchase for your pysanky Easter eggs, since you simply cannot use food coloring. Also, you will need to purchase a specially made stylus that has a funnel on it into which you put your beeswax. There are some other supplies that you need in addition to these basic ones.
Additional supplies needed for pysanky Easter eggs
Egg blower
While an egg blower is an optional tool, it does make it much easier for you to empty out the eggs that you are going to be decorating. Egg blowers are not very expensive. They consist of a very large and black bulb. This black bulb has a small hole at one end, that has a very small and sharp spike in it. You use this spike to carefully drill holes in both the top and the bottom of a raw egg. The bulb should also come with a thin metal rod that you can then put into the holes that you have drilled. This rod will break the egg yolk, which you have to do in order to get it out of the egg. After breaking the yolk, you put the metal spike back in the egg and very slowly and carefuly squeeze the black bulb. The egg yolk and the egg white will come out of the other end of the egg. You can then rinse the egg out with water.
You can also use a syringe to empty the egg. You can use any sort of syringe that you purchase at a medical supply store or an agricultural supply store. Just make sure that you purchase a syringe with a very, very small and thin needle.
Varnish
Varnish is optional, but it certainly makes your pysanky eggs look much, much better. You can use several types of varnish: you can use either shellac, or varathane, or clear gloss varnish. You apply the varnish after they have dried and you have taken the wax off of the egg. Make sure, however, that you test the varnish on a very small area of the egg first so that you can ensure that the varnish will not make your colors run.
Household supplies for pysanky eggs
1. Eggs: you can use chicken, goose, duck, and even ostrich eggs. The eggs must be raw and they also must be at room temperature when you start to work with them. Before you choose an egg and begin to work on it, hold the egg up to the light to ensure that there are no hairline cracks in the egg.
2. White vinegar. You will use the white vinegar to clean the egg; combine half a cup of water to one tsp of vinegar. You also need the white vinegar to strengthen your dyes if they start to fade (other than orange and pink dyes). If your dyes are too pale, add a teaspoon of white vinegar to the dye.
3. Newspaper to cover your work area.
4. Tissues to blot up wax, to clean the stylus, to dry the eggs, and to wipe off the wax.
5. Candles. You need candles not for their wax (you use beeswax), but to melt the wax that is in the stylus. You also need candles to melt the wax off of your eggs.
6. Other materials: You also need: spoons, pencils, cotton swabs, elastic bands, and a home made drying rack. To make the drying rack, pound short nails into a flat board in a tripod formation. You will need to use finishing nails because they have smaller nail heads and they won’t leave much of a mark on the egg’s varnish.
