P is for Pysanky – #atozchallenge

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Today I am so excited because it is the one day a year my family and I gather together for my favorite arts and craft activity: pysanky. Pysanky is the Ukrainian / Polish art of decorating Easter eggs. In the photo above Sadie is posed with some wooden store bought examples of Pysanky.

In order to create Pysanky you need eggs, a stylus, a candle, some wax, and various colored dye. You begin by filling the stylus with wax melted with the candle. The wax flows through the stylus, allowing you to draw with wax on the surface of your egg. Any lines or marks you make on your egg at this first stage will remain white. When you are finished drawing everything you want to appear in white on your egg, you then dip the egg in your first color. Typically yellow is the first color dye used on an egg. Once your egg is yellow, you add more wax to your egg, drawing anything you wish to appear yellow on the finished product. You then dip your egg in the next color, then draw on more wax, repeating the process until you’ve used all of the colors you would like for your design. Typically you start with light colors and make your way darker, starting with yellow through to black. Once your egg has finished in the final dye color and has had time to dry completely, you then begin to remove all the wax from the egg. You must carefully heat the egg, holding it up to the candle until the wax becomes soft enough to rub off with a paper towel. As the layers of wax are slowly removed, you begin to see the brilliant variety of colors now decorating your egg. Once all the wax is removed, we usually spray or paint a protective layer or veneer on the egg to preserve the color. Then we place a small hole in the tip of the egg to carefully remove the yolk from inside. This step is not necessary and can potentially harm or crack the egg you’ve worked so hard on, but we prefer to display hollow eggs rather than taking the chance on displaying eggs that are rotten inside and can eventually break open over time. Usually I’m able to decorate about four eggs during that one afternoon every year. I’m definitely growing quite the collection 🙂 .

This photo displays some of the Pysanky I have made over the years.

This post is part of the Blogging From A to Z April Challenge.

Check out Slimdoggy‘s blog hop below for other great pet blogs taking the challenge with me.

This post is part of Rascal and Rocco‘s Pet Parade blog hop.

Thanks for liking us! Sadie and I really appreciate the love!