Once a year for at least a week, my kitchen and dining room become a frenzied artist’s workshop full of dyes, the smell of melting beeswax, and a variety of tools. I go on a hunt for white chicken eggs to ethnic shops (and chicken farms!) and buy as many as I can, and spend my days hunched over the delicate eggs, painstakingly fashioning each egg into a work of art. Each year I try a new technique or style, searching for design inspirations that surpass the creations of the year before. Some of the eggs take several hours, depending on the tradition in which they are designed. Decorating eggs this way for Easter is a family and ethnic tradition. I have been decorating since childhood, and over the years I have amassed a collection of my favorite ones. Many of the eggs are given as gifts. For the past decade, I have taken photos of them and shared them with the Lithuanian community.

These photos are now published in my new book Eggstraordinary Art: Beautiful Eastern European Eggs for Easter. It is available now worldwide on Amazon.

Click here to go to the sales website.

The eggs in this photo are decorated in traditional Lithuanian style using the drop-pull method. But I have also learned the Ukrainian method, which is far more intricate. The book includes descriptions of these traditions and a photo gallery.