Easter eggs

newspapers, beeswax and candles

Many years going running now, probably about 15 years, I set aside time for decorating Easter eggs. I learned to do Lithuanian ones as a child, and it was always a very meditative process. You sit around a small container of wax melting over a candle, dipping a stylus into the wax and dabbing the wax on the white egg. When you've finished your design, the egg goes into some color dye. The part I liked the most about this was that there was no push to talk much, because you were engaged in a group activity, but concentrating. It was easy to reconnect with people you hadn't seen in a while more gently than having to have a big discussion.

We decorated boiled eggs with food-grade dyes, and included them on the Easter dinner table.

Then I learned about the Ukranian method, which is kind of like the Lithuanian method. On speed. You use raw eggs and industrial strength fabric dyes - no eating will be happening here. You use a stylus you purchased, made with a copper funnel, or a machined funnel (Lithuanian egg styluses are, well, more humble - a flat head dress pin stuck into the eraser of a #2 pencil). You paint pictures on the egg, and layer up to 4 or 5 colors - wax, then color yellow, then more wax, then egg goes into orange, etc until black.

Apart from making 100 Lithuanian style eggs for wedding favors, I have not really looked back. Ukranian all the way, for me.

One year, soon after I got my own dyes and styli and egg-blowing swag, I was so taken with the possibilities that I made egg Christmas ornaments for everyone. I must have spent 40 hours on them all told. They traveled back to the Midwest with me from Tucson, each in their own hard plastic case, in my carry-on.

when using fabric dyes, especially black, you wear all black. plus a black apron.

the newspaper gets marked with test-swipes of the stylus, to see if the wax is flowing - the paper towels take the brunt of drying the eggs after each color

 

 

You use a lot of paper towels in the process, your hands get dyed, you break some eggs when blowing them out (AFTER you spent an hour decorating them - it requires a kind of Zen detachment from the finished project or else I don't make it through).

The last few years I went really minimal on the whole process. Whereas I used to have day-long weekend parties in Tucson, dozens of eggs, dyes, implements, guests, things are necessarily simpler now. For two years now, I've dyed alone, using only black dye, making black and white eggs, my only goal to have one egg that survives, blown out, with a design that represents something A really liked that year. The first year's egg was a design from an IKEA pillowcase, that she used to make goo-goo eyes at when she was a few months old. It mesmerized her.

This year, I'm trying for fish and for ladybugs, in honor of her 12-24th months. And I managed to mix up a whopping 8 dyes, and even invite a few people over to dye eggs. Three people, last minute, and one couldn't make it. In a few years, hopefully there will be time and space for a party again. But for now, this is more than enough to get my cravings out.

And someday, when A moves out on her own, and gets her own Christmas tree, she'll get a box of ornaments from me to take with her.