My friend Sonya's family heritage is Ukrainian. For years her family has got together on Good Friday to decorate eggs the Ukrainian way.
Today was my second Good Friday visit and I had good fun joining in with family members four years old and up, playing around with raw eggs, wax and dyes.
Decorating the eggs takes lots of time, patience and a steady hand. The basic idea is choose a pattern, (on the left is the one I chose), lightly pencil it on the egg shell, draw a fine line of hot melted wax over the pattern you wish to have white, then set the egg in a bowl of light dye colour for 10 minutes. (The 10 minute waits were handy as there was lots of food to snack on.)
My first dye colour was red. So the whole egg shell that did not have the was lines took the red dye.
I drew more hot wax pattern lines on the red egg. Under these lines the pattern will stay red.
Next the egg goes into the black dye for 10 minutes. At the end of that time, the egg goes into a 250* oven for 15 minutes to gently melt the wax buildup. Taking it out of the oven and carefully wiping off the soft was to reveal the finished egg is quite exciting. I made two during the afternoon. The secret is to keep a steady hand! I definitely need more practice!
