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130320 Linda dripping candle on her Ukrainian egg. Melissa 2

March 20, 2013. Today is the first day of spring! Our Wednesday morning craft group met this morning in the back room of The Company of Angels to make Ukrainian eggs in time for Easter. A $10 fee covered supplies and as many eggs as we wanted to make.

130320 Christine dripping hot beeswax on her Ukrainian egg

Rachel Skelly and Christine Newell organized our craft group. Thank you Christine for preparing materials and showing us how to make Ukrainian eggs. Thank you Rachel for the organization and refreshments!

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Weekly craft group shenanigans. Posted here. Please “Like” me on facebook. Thank you!

121202 Vintage Life photo show girls crafting inside trailer at war times. Post button for Wednesday Morning Craft Group

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Our Morning Together. Wednesday, March 20, 2013

 Making Ukrainian eggs in time for Easter.

130320 Anicka dripping hot beeswax on her dyed Ukrainian egg to block up the first color.

Christine prepared our raw eggs by bringing them to room temperature (from the refrigerator) and cleaning them with vinegar.

130320 Nunu's hands holding pink Ukrainian Easter egg

The eggs will remain raw from beginning to the end of this process. Christine said over time, the contents of the egg will dry up. The egg will only smell bad over time if there is a crack in it.

Ideally, the pencil markings should be light and carefully made because erasing should be avoided (erasing can leave marks).

130320 Marking sections on Ukrainian egg using a pencil

Most of us started our craft using white eggs. Christine told us that the white eggs some how do not take up dyes very well and have to be dipped a little longer in dye. Brown eggs would give us the look of wooden eggs, she said.

130320 Christine chalkboard teaching us to make Ukrainian eggs

130320 marking sections on Ukrainian egg with a pencil

Tools of the trade. Grated beeswax (bottom, left) is ready to be scooped into a kistka (a metal cup with a very small hole in the bottom) for melting over the candle flame.

130320 tools for melting shaved beeswax candle to decorate Ukrainian eggs.

Photo above shows a traditional kistka with a brass cup (on the right) and a machine made (blue) kistka.

Christine reminded us to draw lines on paper towel (see above, left) to allow the first melted wax to come out evenly through the kistka. This way, our subsequent drawing lines will be even. Whenever we forget to do this, we get big fat blobs of molten wax at the begining of the line drawn on the egg.

I like how Christine organized her tools inside a wooden wine box.

130320 tools for making Ukrainian eggs. Hagrid

Large chunks of sweet-smelling beeswax and a cheese grater. Christine had grated some beeswax onto a piece of paper towel. As we worked with these wax, the sweet scent attracted honey bees into our room!

I found some store bought and home-made tools for making pysansky “All Things Ukrainian” website.

Christine brought some books for us to choose designs and symbols to decorate our eggs.

Traditional Pysanky Symbols.

Traditional Pysanky Symbols for decorating Ukrainian Eggs.

Source.

I especially love the animal symbols. Here are some I found online.

Pysanky Hen and chick on Pinterest.

Pysanky Traditional Folk Symbols of Animals for Ukrainian Easter eggs. Hen and chick fertility.

Hens represent fertility and Hens’ feet represent protection of young. The baby chick here represents rebirth. The many dots in the background represent stars or cuckoo birds’ eggs (a symbol of spring). The waves in the border symbolize wealth because it was the rains or water that dictated the yield of the crops.

Here is a design I like from “All Things Ukrainian” website.

130321 Pysanky Ukrainian egg with birds on a tree design

Birds symbolize Spring, Rebirth , Hope and Joy.

Source

Love birds goose egg pysanka by Katya Trischuk on Flicker:

130321 love birds goose egg pysanka by Katya Trischuk on flicker

source

Horses

horses

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Dyeing Ukrainian Eggs

Anicka ready to dip her wax decorated egg into the first dye.

130320 Anicka's hands holding her Ukrainian eggs before adding dye. Logo

Christine set up our egg decorating work indoors, so our candles would not get snuffed out by the wind. For the egg dyeing, we did that outdoors in the warm Californian sunshine. By the way, today, March 20, 2013 is the first day of Spring! Happy Spring to you!

130320 Dyeing Ukrainian Eggs outdoors in the Company of Angels garden.

Julia first dipped her decorated egg into the pink dye. After blocking off some areas (shown pink below) with melted beeswax, here she dipped it again into turquoise dye.

130320 Julia's Ukrainian egg dipped in turqoise dye in jar.

Here is my decorated egg, dipped into the pink dye jar. I had to dip and retrieve the raw egg carefully to avoid cracking it.

130320 Ukrainian egg dipped in pink dye with a large spoon

Due to the lack of time in the morning, I only dipped my egg in one round of dye. I would have looked better if I had more time to add more dye colors.

Anicka dripping hot beeswax on her dyed Ukrainian egg to block up the first color. Areas blocked by wax will remain in the original color when the egg is dipped into the next color.

130320 Anicka dripping hot beeswax on her dyed Ukrainian egg to block up the first color.

Linda working.

130320 Linda dripping candle on her Ukrainian egg. Melissa 2

Bees flew inside the room from the sweet smell of the beeswax!

Christine and Alena intently dripping melted beeswax to block off areas of colors on their eggs in preparation for the next dye-dipping.

130320 Alena making Ukrainian eggs. Killer legs 2.

A close-up view of Christine (in blue, above photo) dripping hot beeswax onto her beautiful Ukrainian egg that had been dipped in yellow.

130320 Christine dripping hot beeswax on her Ukrainian egg

For some, making Ukrainian eggs is a soothing and enjoyable pastime. For beginners like me, it can be a humbling challenge. It also reminded me the pace of patience in these digital times. However, I enjoy any creative endeavors when they are done among friends.

We were joking that if our handwork were used as criteria for marriage proposals, some of us would have trouble getting suitors.

130320 Jzin's first Ukrainian egg ready for low temperature of the oven to melt off and remove the white candle 2.

My first attempt at making Ukrainian egg (photo above). Big wax blobs were results from forgetting to draw out first melted beeswax from the flame onto a paper towel.  I am fortunate I have already been spoken for.

Alena told us a story of (some latino culture, I forgot which) a culture where marriageable girls would toss their hand woven baskets into a pit. Young men would peruse these hand works and pick a bride based on the quality of their basket weaving.

We were joking that Julia will be the only one with a line of suitors at her door…

130320 Julia's Ukrainian egg in pink and turqoise dyes

Cold fusion.

130320 Alena and Anicka cold fusion

Alena’s egg, flanked by Anicka and Jzin’s eggs. These eggs are ready to go into the oven to melt off the wax.

130320 Three Ukrainian eggs ready to go into the oven to melt the white wax

Before we left for the day, Christine showed us her egg blower tool, in case we choose to empty the contents of the egg after the decoration is done.

130320 Christine showing Alena how to blow out her Ukrainian egg with a egg blowing tool 3

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My Ukrainian Egg, After The Wax was Removed

Christine instructed us to take our eggs home (these *raw* decorated eggs were carefully wrapped in foil and paper towel, put inside a disposable paper cups for the trip home) and put them inside an oven at very low heat to melt off the wax.

Christine instructed to use about 175 degrees fahrenheit for 20 minutes. Mine needed 190 degrees for the wax to melt. After that, I simply wiped the soft wax off and my egg looked shiney and clean.

Before wax removal.

130320 Jzin's first Ukrainian egg ready for the oven to melt off the white wax

After wax removal.

130320 Jzin's first handmade Ukranian egg for easter. Photo among purple daisies

Nice and clean!

My little one enjoyed warming her hands with the egg right from the oven (it was 190 degrees for my oven).

130320 Nunu with pink Ukrainian egg

Coincidentally, Nunu is currently practicing Ukrainian variations by Kabalevsky. This week, we worked on Theme, variation 1 & 2.

130320 Nunu's Ukrainian egg and her piano practice piece Kabalevsky's Ukrainian Variations music sheet

Here, our quiet Ukrainian egg kept us company during our piano practice.

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Books and Supplies

Christine’s books.

Egg Beautiful. How to Make Ukrainian Easter Eggs

130320 Christine's book on How to Make Ukrainian Eggs

Amazon.com

Christine’s reference books. Click here to review The Easter Craft Book on Amazon.com.

130320 Christine's books on Making Ukrainian Easter Eggs. The Easter Craft Book by Thomas and Petra Berger. Eggs Beautiful. Ukrainian Design Book.

The Easter Craft Book on Amazon.com

I found some store bought and home-made tools for making pysansky “All Things Ukrainian” website.

Christine mentioned you can also get them online: Ukrainian Gift Shop on Amazon.com

Too-dle-loo! See you next Wednesday morning! Thanks! -Jzin

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Another Egg Decorating Idea

Nature has the best designs. An idea on weibo.com (in Chinese).

Instructions in chinese: Here. Jzin’s translation: Boiled white-shelled eggs dyed in soaked onion skins. The eggs were tightly tied up in panty hose. The onion skin gives  a red tint to the Easter eggs.

Leaf eggs on weibo. Nature has the best designs.

source

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I Started Painting Again

Here is my study using 3 colors, wet on dry.

130315 Feb 2012 Entrails of the Polite One. acrylic on dry paper red clouds with logo

March 15, 2014. This painting above was sold at a benefit for Waldorf School of Orange County.

Here is my old (unfinished) exercise, Bacchus and Ariadne, after Titian from when I was still a graduate student working on my thesis. I think the gash on Bacchus was from moving home.

130315 Bacchus et Ariadne by Jzin Teng

My old painting. Bacchus, at that moment when his life was changed forever. The gash was from bad storage.

130315 Bacchus and gash

My old painting. The bacchantes and nyads knew what Bacchus and Ariadne were, right up to that moment oblivious of.

130315 Bacchus et Ariadne by Jzin Teng The bacchantes and nyads knew what Bacchus and Ariadne did not

 Here are some of my old watercolor paintings here.

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Check out my handmade Fairy Tale Dolls: Dolls and Tales page.

March 18, 2013. Just finished making African mermaid daddy Kabi and his merbaby, Booboo. They will love to frolic on your Summer Season table! The playful pair are available to purchase now on my Etsy store. https://www.etsy.com/listing/127173630/waldorf-african-mermaid-father-and?ref=shop_home_active

130318 Kabi and Booboo. Logo

Kabi is actually named after Russian composer Dmitri Kabalevsky. Since the doll was made while my 8 year old practiced her new Kabalevsky piano piece, Ukrainian variations.

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Parent Education Event: Painting Workshops with Angelika Kolbe

Malatelier Angelika Kolbe. Water Color. Waldorf Education Teacher. CastleofCostaMesa.com

Shortly After Spring Break

Learn wet-on-wet painting in an engaging format from a true master. In addition to being a Waldorf class teacher for 16 years at the Waldorf School in Marnburg/Germany, Angelika taught drawing and painting to high school students. Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts at the University in Hamburg/Germany, we are lucky to have her with us for this special parent education event. Please take the opportunity to join Angelika for these painting sessions.

The total workshop is 6 sessions. You may sign up for all 6 or pick and choose dates according to your availability.

Dates: April 26, April 29, May 3, May 6, May 8, May 10. All 8:30 – 10:30 in Big Aftercare

To cover the cost of materials, each session is $10. Cash only please. You will sign up in the front office when we return from break.

Click on picture to see my watercolor paintings done with Angelika last year.

Waldorf Foundation Studies watercolor painting workshop with Angelika Kolbe. Color study. The Leap Beyond Gray Clouds. CastleofCostaMesa.com

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My handmade dolls for Waldorf Seasons Nature Table

All Seasons

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Maple Village Waldorf School in Long Beach Annual Fundraiser: 2 awesome raffles!

Buy some raffles and support the Maple Village Waldorf School! Click here to go to the Maple Village School Website.

Click on pictures below to share this news with your friends on facebook.

130321 Maple Village knitted storyblanket poster

130321 Maple Village School Win Beautiful Needle-felted toys poster

Please give our friends some help. Click below and share this on facebook!

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Support Our Local Waldorf Community/ Place a Free Ad

If you are interested in placing an ad on “Support Our Southern California Waldorf Community” (free if you are a member of this community) please e-mail me a good picture and a link.

Meanwhile, please support our local peeps! Thanks! – Jzin

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Please “Like” Castle of Costa Mesa on Facebook

Please “Like” CastleofCostaMesa.Com on Facebook (top left sidebar of this page). You will be connected to what we do here, plus you will be notified on our up coming handmade giveaways. Click here to view our past handmade doll giveaways. Thank you! – Jzin

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