Ukrainian Gift Shop

First, let me state that I have no connection whatever with the Ukrainian Gift Shop, except as a happy customer. I have never met or talked to any of their employees, past or present, blah, blah, blah . . . Their service was pretty good - they made one small mistake with my order, and corrected it promptly when I pointed it out to them. I plan to re-order from them when my supplies run low.

Having said all that, here is their address phone number, and URLs:

Ukrainian Gift Shop, Inc.
2782 Fairview Avenue North
Roseville, MN 55113

Phone: (651) 638-9700
Toll free number for orders only: 1-866-PYSANKA

Web page: http://www.ukrainiangiftshop.com/
On-line store: http://www.mailordercentral.com/ukrainiangiftshop/

They have a very nice free catalog, pamphlet-sized, with some color pictures and a lot of other related Ukrainian stuff advertised in it too.

When we ordered (in 1994), the dyes cost a little over $0.50 per packet, but the complete set of eighteen colors cost just $9.00 . You might not really need so many colors - I think we must have had at least two or three jars of dye that didn't see any eggs at all. If you want to get just the basics, I'd recommend black, yellow, orange, red, blue, green, and maybe purple.

The electric kiskty come in several different sizes, and each cost around $20.00 . We bought two fine ones and one medium. We wanted several kiskty because it is much more fun to make pysanky with a group. Otherwise, you could get just one kistka with a changable tip. Those are a little more expensive, but cheaper than getting several whole kistky. And of course, they also sell ordinary (non-electric) kistky, which are much cheaper.

yakowenk@cs.unc.edu, 5-Apr-2001