paint cut paste

i think this is one of the cutest ways i’ve seen to upcycle those random buttons you might have around… make button christmas trees! (wow, i’m on a tree kick this holiday season, huh? most of our holiday artventures have been tree-oriented.)

i first saw this idea on modern minerals, via pinterest (pinned it this summer for later use.) we modified her tutorial a bit to make it more kid friendly, and let me say that it was a total hit! in lieu of using string to bind the buttons together, we used pipe cleaners – so easy for small hands to maneuver. N and i gathered up various buttons we had around (including a lot of white and green ones,) some pipe cleaners, and a few shank buttons (the kind with a loop on the back of them) we had around to use as “tree toppers.” (you can see the shank buttons on the left in the pic below.)

(yes, as you can see we've also been painting more wooden ornaments - we do this each year)

we started by bending the pipe cleaner in half, and putting the shank button on first.

then we put the two ends of the pipe cleaner through two opposing holes in each button, working from small button to large button.

it was fun to experiment with various color schemes. N was really into making pink and purple trees!

here are some of our trees before we cut the pipe cleaners off of the bottom. (they’re kinda cute like trees on sticks – i bet they could be used so many ways like this, too!)

then we twirled one side of the pipe cleaner around the other side to create a “trunk” look at the bottom. [you can also use small brown (or other color) buttons for a trunk.] i cut the extra length off of the pipe cleaners.

we tied a bit of baker’s twine through the hole of the top shank bead and hung them on the tree. (and tied a few to some lucky gift recipients, as well.)

(some of these remind me of wedding cakes – with the right color scheme and topper, this could be modified for weddings or bridal showers in some way, too!)

have you ever been addicted to making flower fairies?

oh, i’ve had this bug for way too many years, and now i’m thinking it just might be genetic…

they’re just too fun! gather up some floral wire, wooden beads, silk petals, and get busy making new little friends! OR get the kit at the bottom of this post that has all of the materials in it, along with inspirational ideas for fairies you can create.

love these springtime friends!

one of my favorite things about autumn are the beautiful, variegated ears of maize that grace the farmers markets. their jewel-like colors are always inspiring… and this year they inspired jewelry.

if it were not for crow rooster crow, i wouldn’t have known it was possible to bead with corn, but i saw this supercool idea for making an indian corn necklace and had to put it into action.

N was thrilled to help pop the kernels off the ears of corn. she spent an entire day (off and on) working on one of the ears. this is a great task for little hands, unless you have one of those weird ears of maize where the kernels are sharp. (we had one of those and it so wasn’t possible for her or me to pluck that one.)

after all kernels were off the cobs, it was quite satisfying to even just play with a huge bowl of the seeds. this material alone makes a colorful filler for an autumn sensory box for toddlers and up.

the next step was to soak the kernels in water to soften them a bit so they can later be punctured by a needle. i chose a handful of the seeds to soak, as i wasn’t ready to use them all at once. (we ended up with zillions!) the blog where i saw this idea said this may take “a few hours” but i soaked ours for about 24 hours (only because i didn’t have a chance to get back to them until a day later.)

i chose some random thread and a needle from my sewing stash, and drained the water from the kernels. then i began to string them onto the thread. it was easier than i thought it would be.

the white part of the kernel is easiest to pierce.

pardon these dark rainy-afternoon photos

stringing the necklace was very satisfying. while N couldn’t use the needle and thread herself, she sat beside me, cheering me on excitedly as she watched her necklace take shape.

the idea is to make this as easy as possible… use a LONG piece of thread so you can just tie it together after the strand is long enough to go over your little one’s head. i didn’t have too much forsight on this one, so my thread was too short, and i ended up having to put a clasp on this necklace so she could take it on and off because it lacked a bit of length. luckily, i’m a beader and had those things on hand, but it would have been easier had i thought about this in advance, so i’m telling you now so you can learn from my mistake.

once it was complete, N was thrilled to try it on. she said it looked like “what a hula dancer would wear in the fall.”

we have so many more jewel-like kernels that i’d love to make a multi-strand harvest necklace for myself, and perhaps a bracelet for N.

we’ve done some bead crafts before, but N wasn’t ever as into diligently stringing beads as she was today… when my self-proclaimed beader went to WURK.

we got out our trusty alphabet beads to make a baby bracelet for a newborn friend (and a big sis bracelet for the newly-minted big sis.) we like to mix these with our mish-mashed bead collection on stretch cord to make funky trinkets as gifts.

we’ve also used these same combos to make allergy-alert bracelets – remember? N picked out some beads she loved, and we also made her a name bracelet for herself today.

(knitted sweater a la my mom)

as i was working on the baby bracelet, i noticed that N was rooting through the letters, and had picked out a stash of beads and was stringing them happily on the other side of the table. honestly, this wasn’t going to be a blog entry craft until i saw what was going on.

it wasn’t until i was finished with the baby bracelet that i realized what she was doing – too sweet!

customized jewelry is quite a perk of having a 3-year-old who can spell the names of her family members.

batgirl, the beader

i proudly sported my mommy bracelet all day long!

way better than silly bandz, yo!

a while back i posted a blog about making impressions of natural objects in sculpey after a nature walk. it was one of my favorites…

since we discovered that sculpey is fairly toxic when baking, i decided to try this out again, but this time using crayola model magic. N and i wanted to make a farewell gift for two of her sweet friends who are leaving the state, so what better thing to give than a piece of the bay area? so, impressions from the redwood tree in our yard. we pressed a leaf and a tiny pinecone into two pieces of model magic, and fashioned it into a droplet form, poking a hole through the top with a wooden skewer.

then we let it dry for 24 hours, and strung it on a leather cord along with a few earthy wooden beads we had in our stash. and there you have it – our ode to california farewell gift.

there’s a window in N’s playhouse outside that gets amazing afternoon light… it was begging for some prismatic suncatchers!

i found these cool crystal pieces from an old chandelier ages ago at an antique flea market for maybe a buck each, if that. they seemed like perfect little rainbow-making charms to drop from the bottom of each of our three light-catching strands. because we used nylon bead cord, i just tied a knot to the little loops at the end of the chandelier pieces, and added beads from there. (if you use bead wire, you can rig it like you would the end of a necklace.)

being a formerly avid beader, i have a stash of bead string and wire around the art room, as well as plenty of random cheesy plastic and glass sparkly beads that little girls like to play with. if you head to michael’s or check on amazon.com, you are likely to find a large pack of plastic sparkly beads for a few dollars. mirrored pieces are nice, too, but i didn’t have any for this.

one night, after dinner, N and i made a bowl of the most colorful and reflective beads we could find. (because we did this in the evening, the photos look darker. sorry. i’m not a fan of using flash.) N had plenty of fun just putting her hands in the bowl to feel the beads – like a tiny sensory table.

she searched for treasures to thread onto our bead cord.

we made three strands of totally random color order and all different lengths.

we tied loops in the top of them so that the next day we could hang them from nails in the wall of the shed-turned-playhouse above the window.

they’re already making rainbows all over the walls in the afternoon sunshine… love it!

here’s another one of those art activities that starts out with the best intentions, and then falls sort of flat in the end. though, it is my aim to share all of our art-experiements with you, dear readers, so that maybe you can try it with better luck, perhaps, and learn from our mistakes.

my sweet husband brought home two dozen beautiful red roses a while back. we’re not big fans of purchasing cut flowers over here (lovely as they are, they are kind of a waste of money and our cats usually just eat them, knock over the vase, and later vomit flower-parts up onto the rug.) regardless, the roses were romantic, and quite pretty for that temporary while. and husband assures me they were on sale. hopefully this blog comes at just about the time when your valentine flowers are dunzo and can begin their second life. when my roses’ vibrant petals started dropping, i thought there must be something we could do with them.

a zillion things came to mind from rosewater to rose baths (but who am i kidding? i hardly soak in a bath anymore and who knows if there are pesticides on these) to potpourri (but that just collects dust at grandmothers’ houses, right? gross.) so i googled a bit, and found out about rose beads. alright, cool and useful recycling, i thought. i’m a long-time beader… and maybe N will enjoy this. i figured i could make a meaningful, very personal mala from these… so N happily helped me to pick off the wilted petals.

then i followed the instructions for rose beads that i found on learn to know, and ground up my limp (but not dried) petals in our food processor until they were couscous-like.

the next step was to simmer the petals in just enough water to cover them, using a cast iron pot. i don’t have a cast iron pot, so i just used a regular one. the thing i read promised that our house would smell delightful. WRONG! it started to stink. i am not sure why, but it kinda grossed us all out.

after a few sessions of boiling, we squeezed out as much water as we could (through a screen strainer) and let the pulp dry by keeping it out for a couple of days. after it was a tacky consistency, we were able to pinch off pieces of it to roll into little balls. if it’s still really wet at this stage, the balls fall apart easily, so i’ll forewarn you that your little friends with tiny fingers can get easily frustrated by this. make sure it’s kind of like paste before you begin this step with a kiddo-helper. (i regret not taking a lot of photos of this as we did it, but i didn’t really know if it would be blog-worthy at the time. honestly, i still don’t know that it is, but i do know that it was a lot of effort expended… read on…)

so we placed our rolled rose petal balls (which smelled a bit putrid, i have to admit) onto a piece of cardboard and let them dry out in the garage for days.

the thing is, i was supposed to wait until they were mostly, but not totally dry, and stick a pin or a stiff wire through them to make holes in each bead (to string it!) but i neglected to do this, as i forgot they were out there. weeks turned into months. uh oh. now we are left with some hole-less, spheres of dried rose petals… i imagine i could put sturdy beading wire through them and still string them as a mala strand or even a mala bracelet… but i may just chalk this one up to an art-gone-wrong activity. somewhat due to the stench (why?! maybe they had pesticides on them?? they were grocery store sale roses afterall…) and mostly due to my negligence in attending to them at the proper stage for piercing.

we’re open to suggestions… what should we do with these little floral orbs now?