The Egg!

A few years ago, my dear friend Michael presented me with the most unbelieveable egg I have ever seen. When I saw the egg, my mouth dropped open and I was in a state of shock. He mentioned that he had been making these eggs with his family since he was 4 years old. He went on to tell me that the process was relatively simple and it only took a few minutes to make each egg. I did not believe him. This is the egg he gave me that I treasure year round:

Unbelieveable, right? I look at it all the time and I still can't belive it! Here is how you can make your own wax egg! Try it this weekend!

Start by hollowing out raw eggs: Using a pin, poke small holes in each end of the egg, wiggle the pin around inside the hole to make it a little bit larger. Blow out the insides of the egg: Use the pin to wiggle around and break up the yoke or you’ll blow your cheeks out. Clean out the egg by running hot water through it. Leave it standing upright to dry out.

Dye you eggs. I found dye recipes on this website that are very easy.

Stick a flat topped pin into a pencil eraser to use as your wax writing implement. It is important that the pin head is flat, not round.

For this technique, you need really hot wax. I melted a red crayon in my melting pot. Michael uses the stove and says he heats the wax until the wax is almost on fire. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that you should never leave melting wax unattended...it is highly flammable. Use caution during this step! I set my melting pot to the hottest setting and let the wax melt- I never took my eyes off the pot.

Being the crafty types that you are, you probably also realize you can use beeswax on white eggs, then dye the eggs, then heat the eggs to remove the wax: 'resist technique'.

You can test how hot your wax is by trying a few test strokes on an extra egg. If you are able to produce nice long strokes of wax, then you are ready to go. If your wax is not hot enough, it will harden on the pin before you are able to draw the line on the egg.

In the picture above, the wax was not hot enough. Notice how I was only able to make short lines. Let the wax heat up some more and try again. Here is my next test run:

Towards the end of this practice run, I was able to get a few longer strokes of color. I was ready to try it for real. Working pretty quick, dip the pin head into the wax and draw onto your egg. It takes a steady hand, so I recommend holding your egg in your non-dominant hand on the counter top. Once the egg is steady, bring in the wax strokes.

I spoke with Michael this morning and asked about the wax he uses. He told me that he usually just chops up whatever candle he may have on hand (birthday or taper stump) and then adds color via crayon and/or food coloring. I was frustrated that my pin was not delivering as much wax per line as Michael's candle and came to the conclusion that the difference may lay in the type of wax used. You can notice in his egg photos, the beads of wax are much heavier than on my egg. We used the same pin.

I had the idea to make an ornament out of my egg using string. In order to string the egg, I needed to enlarge the holes in the egg. During this process, I chipped one whole larger than I would have liked to, so I tied a button onto the string to hold it in place. Voila!

Red and blue...did you think I would make it any other colors? This is a really fun project that I am going to continue to try every year! I don't know if I will ever be able to make an egg as beautiful as Michael's, but I am going to have a fun time trying! For kicks, check out the eggs on this website! Amazing!

My friend doesn't blog, but would love it if you make some eggs and post a link here so he can see the egg love too!

Happy Easter!