Egg Dyeing

We'd already learned a little about pysanky during our Russia Unit (though they are Ukrainian, strictly speaking) so it was fun to try the techniques ourselves (sort of) (not that our "techniques," i.e. drawing on the eggs with white crayon, produce really anything close to those beautiful works of art). You can buy pysanky kits and use actual melted beeswax to create the patterns, but that seemed like something to try when the kids are older. :)  Here are some traditional pysanky symbols/patterns we learned about.

Anyway, we had the most fun dyeing eggs that we've ever had. As an adult, this has been a tradition I don't get too excited about, though I love hard-boiled eggs---just plopping the eggs in egg-dye seems like way too little fun for the bother/mess factor involved. But creating patterns and interesting color combinations made it engaging enough to be worth it. We painted some designs on the eggs with clear nail polish, as well as using the white-crayon method, and those turned out really pretty also. I especially loved watching Sam come up with designs for his eggs.

We also did onion-skin eggs, using this method, which turned out SO pretty. I want to try some of these other natural dyeing techniques too, sometime. 

The finished eggs---lovely rainbows of them. Ahhhh.