Like many people, growing up, my family used to decorate Easter eggs, Only our eggs tended to be decorated like Ukrainian Easter eggs, or pysanky. My mom learned how to do this from a friend of hers, that truly an artist at it. Every year, we’d break out the beeswax candle, heat our styluses and attempt to draw deer or weave patterns, dots, or crosses on the eggs. Some years, we’d even bring out a hypodermic needle and a syringe and extract the yolks so we could keep the eggs for years.

I decided that I wanted to decorate eggs this year, but all we had was the crayon and dye that’s in a Paas kit, and the new dye containing cotton swabs. (Using the swabs are pretty fun.)

I pretty much resigned myself to not decorating eggs with candle wax for many many years, since I had no idea where to buy the stuff you need. Then for some unknown reason I checked out Make’s Top 10 Easter Themed Posts. In the list was a Ukrainian easter eggs. Following a couple of more links, I found out that that The Caning Shop in Berkeley sells everything. Hooray! Surprisingly, the book about how to make the designs my mom has had all my life is still in print.