Storage
Storage
Storing emptied eggs is a much simpler proposition than storing full one. They are less likely to break that full eggs, and, if they do, will not cause any further problems beyond deep, deep despair.
For best results, you need to
1.Keep your pysanky out of direct sunlight or other bright light. Aniline dyes will fade with prolonged exposure to bright light. Royal blue seems to be particularly prone to this.
2.Keep the pysanky from knocking into each other. Make sure they are somehow restrained. You can do this by keeping them in an egg carton (any type), or wrapping them individually with tissue and nestling them in a box. Air circulation is not an issue once they've been drained and have dried out completely.
I used to store all of my empty pysanky in styrofoam egg cartons. Why? Many reasons:
Availability. In my area, almost all eggs are sold in styrofoam cartons. Not only do I buy my eggs in them, but friends and family save them for me.
Utility. These cartons are easy to label; I just write on them with a sharpie. That way I always know what is inside any given carton.
Stackability. The cartons are quite light and can be stacked on one another for easy storage. I pile them up inside those brown legal storage boxes or in plastic milk crates; I can stack the cartons three across and six high.
Responsibility. There is recycling of some plastics in my area, but not styrofoam. By reusing these cartons, I am keeping them out of the landfill.
Durability. The cartons are light but strong, and were created specifically to store and protect eggs. I have dropped many a carton in my time, but have never had an egg (empty sort) break on me. Keep in mind, though, that if you drop a very heavy object onto a carton, all bets are off.
Portability. They are easy to schlep around. They fit extremely well inside most handled grocery bags, either cloth or paper, and perfectly, two cartons abreast, in my sari bags.
Storing the cartons themselves is another matter. One solution I used for quite a while was stacking the eggs in a wall of legal boxes; I had a number of old ones around, and the cartons fit so well in them, three wide and six high.
Later I switched to plastic milk crates, as they were waterproof, and easier to wire together. The milk crates are a bit shorter than the legal boxes, and only fit about 15 dozens per crate.
Paper cartons have become much more available, so I use those now, too. And my Costco sells eggs in two-flat packages; a flat holds thirty eggs, in a 5 x 6 configuration. The flats stack nicely, and fit nicely into a 12” X 12” cardboard box. I mostly store blank, empty eggs in these boxes, but also find it convenient to store my gift eggs (those made for giving away, e.g. annual collections and snowflake eggs). The eggs I write for my own collection go into my cabinets.
And a few years ago I acquired several antique embroidery floss cabinets form a good friend; she had bought them many years ago, back in the 60s and 70s, when they were still fairly common. Her husband created dividers in the drawers from folded paper. The drawers are just slightly deeper than a chicken egg, and wide enough for six (pictured below) or eight eggs. These compartments fit large chicken egg pysanky perfectly:
The glass front is nice–it lets me enjoy the pysanky without opening the drawers. Please note that the fronts of the cabinets are NOT in direct sun, but away from it! The two smaller units can store up to 720 pysanky each; the larger one can store up to 960. And they’re filling up fast.......
I now store most of my pysanka collection in my cabinets.........when they’re not at our local museum. There are some in bowls and baskets around the house, and a few in a glass front cabinet. The rest are in egg flats or egg cartons in my basement (which is also my maysternia).
What about goose eggs? I seem to give away most of goose egg pysanky that I write, and have just their photos to remember them by. The few that remain are on display in my china cabinet, out of direct sun. Those that I’ve made for gifts I store in goose egg cartons:
The first couple of dozen goose eggs I bought came in cartons like these; those sellers, like many others I’ve used, soon got rid of their geese. I was able find these cartons for sale on EggCartons.com, and now have a lifetime supply! Their only drawback is their transparency; while it’s good for seeing what’s in the carton, it means the cartons themselves have to be stored in a dark place
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Storing Emptied Pysanky