How do you prepare your eggs for writing pysanky?  It’s not just a matter of popping an egg out of the fridge (if you’re in North America) or out of the egg basket and writing away.  The egg should be properly prepared so that it will take dyes and wax well, and not break in the process.

On the following pages I have described the egg preparation process; it’s much easier to do than to write about.  But a couple of points should be made:

1. 1.ALWAYS make sure that eggs are at room temperature (and that room temperature is in the high 60s).  Do not write on cold eggs–the wax will not stick properly and may flake off.
   

2. 2.ALWAYS make a test egg when you find a new source of eggs.  If they are store eggs, you have no idea how they have been treated (scrubbers, chemicals) and how this might have affected the shells. Farm eggs are usually a safer bet, but you never know. Take an egg, prepare it as you would normally do, and then write a few lines of wax and put it in a dye or two.  This will reveal if the shell is good for writing, and if the eggs have roller marks (rings around the egg that dye poorly).
   

If you use full eggs, you will only need he sections about inspecting, cleaning, storing and handling.  If you work on emptied eggs, make sure to also read about emptying and sealing eggs.

In this section:

        Inspecting Eggs

        Cleaning Eggs

        Storing Eggs

        Emptying Eggs

        Sealing Eggs

        Handling Eggs

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