Crafts Night: Pysanky Easter Eggs

Every other month I get together with some friends from my local Newcomers Club for a night of crafting.  Sometimes we just bring whatever current project we are working on, other times we all work on the same project.  Over the past two years we have tried scrapbooking, card making, home decor, jewelry making, and knitting. This week we decided to try our hand at Pysanky (Ukranian) Easter Eggs.  One of our group members has been making these every year for the past 5 years or so, so she had all the necessary supplies, and was able to instruct the rest of us.  

These are the ones my friend has made over the years.

Basically, you create a design on your egg using beeswax and a stylus, then put the egg in a light colored dye bath.  

K. is quite the artist!
She spent a long time putting very intricate designs on her egg.

The parts of the egg covered in wax will remain white.  After coming out of the dye, you add more wax designs, then put it in another color dye. You can repeat this process as much as you want, progressing from light to dark colors. 

Once you are finished, put the egg in a 200 degree oven for a few minutes to soften the wax, and wipe it off.

You end up with a beautiful multi-colored egg!  Here are the finished products:

Mine's the bright red one in the back.
I "egg-lifted" one of my friend's designs!

It was actually a lot easier that I thought it would be, but does require quite a bit of special equipment.  I would love to try it again though, now that I have a better sense of what I am doing!

A few recent layouts

I did manage to make a few layouts in August, I just never got around to posting any of them! Here they are now, for your viewing pleasure!

This first one if of my dogs enjoying a spring day in the field next to our house. The title doesn't pop as much as I thought it would against the busy patterned paper, but I am calling it good enough!

The next three are for my Newcomers Club.  The 2009-2010 album is now complete and I can pass the reigns to the new Historian! Although I completed these before the start of May Flaum's class at Big Picture Scrapbooking, I really dug deep into my stash for some of these!!

Thanks for looking!

May Wrap-Up

Wow!  May was a whirlwind!  The end of the semester brought final exams to prepare and grade, lots of papers to read, and commencement and other end of the year activities to attend.  I also managed to squeeze in a trip to New Jersey for a Scrapbook Expo.  I took three Basic Grey classes during which we created nine different LOs.  Once I find pictures to go with them, I will post them here!  I also attended the two evening crops, where I managed to complete several pages for the Newcomers Club album that I am working on (my main duty as Club Historian!).  Here they are (sorry some are a bit blurry!):

The first one is based on a PageMaps Sketch:

Another LO inspired by PageMaps...love that site! It also fulfilled a challenge from another board to use a "dusty tool" (my QK scallop border!).

A LO from our January General Meeing at an Organization Store:

From our April General Meeting at a tea shop (yet another PageMaps sketch!):

And finally, a LO for our May Meeting, which raised lots of $$ for two local charities:

For all my Scrapbook Central buddies, this makes my May UIU total 6 LOs and 140 pts. With the exception of the "Bunco Babes" title, everything on these LOs came deep from my stash!!

Thanks for looking!

Results of Saturday's Crop

Here are a few of the LOs I created while cropping at the Scrapbook Clubhouse on Saturday. 

These first two are for my Newcomers Club.
Bunco:

Holiday Party:

This one is from last summer's vacation to upstate New York:

And here are a few from Christmas, featuring my lovely nieces:

I am happy to report that everything I used was from my stash, except for the cool patterned paper on Loose Tooth.  It's by Fancy Pants, and I couldn't resist it since it went perfectly with my nieces fleece jacket!

I still need to put the finishing touches on a few other LOs I started while at the crop, so more to come!

Converts?

Two weeks ago I introduced some friends from my local Newcomers Club to the art of scrapbooking.  I have lots of "virtual" scrapbooking friends that I connect with online, but very few local women that I can crop with on a regular basis, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.  I set up a Scrapbooking 101 class at my local scrapbook store (the fabulous Scrapbook Clubhouse in Westbrook, CT) and invited any interested crafters from the Newcomers Club to join me.  We had a nice turnout of seven women.  Some had lots of scrapbooking supplies, but had never made a page before, others were more "seasoned" scrapbookers. The store's manager Tracie led us through a basic one page LO, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.  A few of the newbies even bought some tools so they could continue at home, and a few others signed up for an upcoming crop. Victory is mine!

Here's the crew!

Billie shows of her finished product:

Bettie and Linda proudly display their creations: