Anticipation hangs in the air as Annette Janik holds a wax-covered egg over a candle’s flame in her home studio in Ann Arbor. As the wax slowly melts off, she gently wipes the egg’s surface, revealing a kaleidoscope of colors underneath.

“I love the reveal, because half the time, I don't know what I'm getting,” Janik said. “I don't really know what's under there once it's all covered in wax.”

The eggs, called pisanki (or pysanky in Ukrainian), are an ancient springtime tradition in eastern European countries like Poland, from which Janik’s family hails. Their popularity as Easter decorations in Ukraine has led to a boom in pisanki-making in the U.S., NPR reports, with many home crafters selling them in exchange for donations to pro-Ukraine charities amid the country's ongoing war against Russia.

Janik learned to create pisanki at home with her family as a child. When she decided to rekindle her love of the craft following her grandmother’s death in February, she had no idea her childhood hobby was about to take on a new cultural significance.

“After my grandma passed, I was really thinking about her life, and so (pisanki-making) was sort of my way to … do something as an outlet,” Janik said.

“And then, everything started in Ukraine.” 

Janik, an avid crafter, had never sold any of her projects before. But in March, she decided to list her pisanki on Etsy, with a promise to donate any proceeds to pro-Ukrainian charities. Her first batch sold out within 24 hours, and as of Tuesday, Janik has raised nearly $1,000 in donations.

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As a child, Janik was inspired by her grandmother, who in 1977 emigrated from eastern Poland to Dearborn, where she worked as a tailor. Janik strived to emulate her grandmother's creativity, sewing clothing for her Barbie dolls and experimenting with other crafts, including baking and painting.

The traditional Polish art of pisanka-making was a family affair every spring, when Janik would help her mother and grandmother create the bright, festive eggs ahead of Easter celebrations.

The family sourced supplies from the Polish Art Center in Hamtramck, where Janik said she still shops for dyes, varnishes and kistka, or the hot wax pens she uses to create the Pisanka designs. The shop even offers classes in pisanka-making and other traditional Polish crafts.

"The Polish Art Center is awesome," Janik said. "If people want to pick up the craft (of making pisanki) and learn more about it, that's a good starting place."

In adulthood, Janik — a community director for Yelp and a self-described homebody — said she finds the craft inherently therapeutic. She works on the pisanki in the evening, on lunch breaks, or "any second I have free from work," she said, enjoying the distraction from the demands of daily life.

As expected, Janik starts with an egg — but not just any egg.

Because chicken eggs sold in commercial grocery stores have been cleaned and treated in a way that makes it harder for dyes to adhere to the shell, Janik recommends sourcing pisanki eggs directly from a farm.

She then cleans the egg by dipping it in vinegar and scrubbing it with a magic eraser sponge. Once it's clean and dry, the egg is placed in a lathe, which spins the egg in place, allowing Janik to sketch an even geometric pattern onto the shell with a pencil.

Then, using her hot wax pen, Janik covers the etched outline in wax before dipping the egg in her first color choice. Any sections she wants to stay that first color are then also covered in wax, before the egg is dipped in a second color.

Moving from light to dark, she repeats the process until each part of the egg is filled in with her desired hues. While some crafters carefully plan out their color palettes in advance, Janik said she likes to see where the mood takes her and decide as she works.

"Every egg takes the color differently," she said, "so I kind of let it speak to me a little bit."

Once the egg has been colored, Janik lets it dry overnight before carefully warming the hardened wax over a candle flame, revealing the vibrant design underneath. That's when she moves on to what she calls "the most nerve-racking part" of the process — getting all the, well, egg, out of the egg.

Using a small drill, Janik makes a tiny hole in the surface of the shell. She then inserts a needle, which is connected to a hand pump, and uses it to break up the yolk before pumping the mixture out of the egg.

"It's kind of trippy, because a lot of times, the dye saturates the shell, and the egg comes out purple, or other fun colors," she said.

The empty eggshell then gets a quick dip in an oil-based varnish "to give it a little shine," Janik said, before being packed up and shipped to its new home. The fragile handicrafts are wrapped carefully in multiple layers of foam and bubble wrap to ensure they don't break en route.

Janik said friends and family members, who have watched her bake, sew, sculpt and paint for years, are excited to finally have an opportunity to purchase one of her crafts.

"People have always said, ‘When can I buy your stuff?’ This time they can, and everything goes to a good cause," she said.

For the proceeds, Janik selected two charities as recipients: Polish Humanitarian Action, an organization that provides aid to Ukrainian refugees in Poland, and Fight For Right, which works to protect the rights of Ukrainians with disabilities.

"In the last few years of my grandmother's life, she was very immunocompromised and had a lot of health issues," Janik said. "So I think of her when I see (disabled) people in Ukraine that just physically can't leave. (My grandmother) would have been one of those people."

Although Janik's Etsy store is currently sold out, she said she may create more pisanki after Easter if interest remains. She's also contemplating making and selling wycinanki, a Polish and Ukrainian artform made of cut paper, to continue her fundraising efforts.

"It's been a really lovely journey of creating and getting back to my roots," Janik said, adding that she hopes her story inspires others to reconnect with their heritage through art.

"I would encourage people to not be intimidated by feeling like they don't know what they're doing. Don't let that be a barrier to a really beautiful educational experience."

Lauren Wethington is a breaking news reporter. You can email her at LGilpin@freepress.com or find her on Twitter at @laurenelizw1.