Making Pysanky – Emptying the Eggs

Ostrich egg pysanky. Not mine, but something I’d like to do someday.

After learning a bit (through many mistakes!) making Pysanky last year, I’ve decided perhaps we are ready to show the world the whole process behind it. We’ve made a few improvements and have some tips that might help you in your own egg decorating adventures (though I don’t suggest doing pysanky with really young children, I think it can be done with kids as young as 8. I could be totally wrong here though.)

So one of the hardest things about making pysanky is that you have to blow out the insides of the egg. I used to try to do this with my mouth, and it got very tiring after just a little while. I would also use the two hole method, making a hole on the bottom and on the top. That would make it so I had to cover up two holes with the wax to keep the egg dye from going inside the egg. Also, I would make the holes with a nail or pin, which was very difficult, and would often break the egg.

Well this year we got all fancy, and used a drill to make the holes.

The tiny drill bit made a nice, small round hole on the bottom of the egg.

Then, in order to only use one hole, (and a tiny one at that!) we used a syringe and an IV catheter to blow out the insides. Yes, we like to recycle medical supplies. There have been many perks like this after Micah starting working at a hospital.

Now I realize that not everyone has access to a power drill and IV catheters, but using a sharp nail and your own lung power is still an effective method. I found a wikihow article giving even more options, here.

I think this method worked out quite nicely, and now we have a whole bunch of clean eggs to make pysanky with. For many of you, this could be half the battle, since most of us just dip the whole egg in dye and call it a day. But you all know I am a little more ambitious than that. Stay tuned for the next part of the process.