paint cut paste

school’s out for summer! this was novi’s last week of preschool until it begins again in september. to celebrate, the parents hosted a little potluck party after the last class to honor the two preschool teachers who have been so amazing to our little ones all year long. and, of course, there were gifts…

we collaborated on a scrapbook for the school, where each child was responsible for creating a page for the book, complete with art and a photo of the child. here’s novi’s watercolored page (recognize the rubber cement watercolor resist?) it’s complete with her picture, a self-portrait drawing, and her drawings of both of her teachers. oh, and it’s signed by the artist!

a few weeks ago, we gave each teacher their own handprint tote bag for teacher appreciation week, but we still wanted to make them a little something to commemmorate the end of the year. so, apples for the teachers. naturally. i grabbed two wooden balls (flat on one end) from my wood stash, and i used the woodburning tool to put each teacher’s name on an apple, the school’s name, the year, and novi’s name on the bottom.

(school name blurred for privacy)

then novi went to town painting the apples with watercolors.

we waited for the paint to dry, and then we polished each apple with our homemade wood creme.

then we cut out stems and leaves from green felt and i hot-glued them to the apples.

voila, an apple for each teach! happy summer everyone!

this post is truly for the birds… it’s a way to help our little winged friends pimp their nests for spring, while also using up the scraps you have cluttering up that art bin.

think of these as ornaments for springtime… to be hung outside on the trees in your yard so that birds can peck into them, between the wires, to retrieve lovely adornments for the nests they’re building. this is also a great wintertime project, especially if you are in a snowy area, as it is harder for birds to find scraps and things with which to create nests in such conditions. over the winter, i saw a nest kit made in what looked like a tiny crab pot cage in a gift shop. these can be made inside of lots of things – think mesh bags from the grocery store, little crafty bird cages, etc. i opted to come up with my own homemade version.

the first part is a grown-up (or older child) task: take some wire (i recommend 20 gauge or thicker) and wrap it around one of your child’s balls (ours was tennis ball size, but you can use any sized ball you wish.) i used one of novi’s squishy water balls so that i could mush it to slip it out easily when i was finished wrapping.

after you’ve wrapped it sufficiently, bring the ends of the wire to meet at the top, for a loop, and twist around it with some small pliers. then gently pull the ball out of a larger opening. once you do that, you may need to manipulate your wire back into a ball shape with your hands. you can get creative with sizes and shapes. i strung a couple of wooden beads into ours for fun.

then grab your little one and go hunting through your art cabinet/closet/drawer/bin for scraps of felts, fabrics, ribbons, raffia, moss, feathers, or anything that seems soft and strong enough to hold up to rain. think earth-friendsly and biodegradable. (no plastics, please!)

our scrappy mess

if scraps are large, cut them into little strips.

you and your child can have fun stuffing the wire ball full of these scraps. we enjoyed thinking of color schemes or themes for each one.

now just hang your little orb on a tree outside and see if it draws any feathered friends to it. days or weeks later, it can be fun to take your child out on a nest quest in your yard (or neighborhood) to find little birdie homes that include your groovy treasures. one fun part is that once the birds have emptied your orbs, you can refill them!

these make great gifts for spring birthdays, easter, earth day, mother’s day, and father’s day! just be sure to include a note with it so the recipient knows just what to do with it and doesn’t think you haven’t lost your mind by sending them a ball of art scraps.

i remember the curious process of making paper when i was a kid — it was always sort of odd to me that we’d take perfectly good paper, shred it up, get it wet, and make it into new lumpy paper. curious, indeed, but making your own paper is a fun and wonderful way to recycle scraps you may have laying around the house into something lovely (and something that blooms – read on!)

i was inspired by a guest post on make & takes and decided that creating plantable paper with flower seeds in it would make for lovely mother’s day cards. so novi and i got busy collecting select colors of paper scraps we had around our art studio. (we chose analogous colors so that when they blended, they’d make a color that was not brown. novi’s favorite colors are purple and red, so this worked out well. she helped in hunting for the scraps in our art room, and chose to recycle some of her own preschool art work and valentine hearts, too.)

then the ripping process began! little did i know that tearing is a good lesson for little hands! i sometimes forget that these seemingly ordinary tasks are things we learned along the way, so i took the opportunity to teach novi about tearing. we tore them up into little bits no bigger than a square inch.

next we put the colors into our blender.

we added just enough water to cover the paper shreds, then we blended until it looked like, as novi said, “a raspberry smoothie.” after that, novi sprinkled flower seeds into the pulp. (we chose zinnias.)

do not blend after the seeds are in – just stir them into the pulp with a spoon.

after that, i strained the pulp through a mesh strainer, pushing the water out with a wooden spoon. (if you don’t have a mesh strainer, just place a thin towel in the bottom of your colander and that should work, too.)

i had prepared a cookie sheet with an art rag/towel on it, then a layer of felt. once i pressed the water out of the pulp, i attempted to spread it out evenly onto the felt sheet. (this is where i realized that it may be really hard for this pulp to dry in such a way as to make a sheet of paper – it seemed really clumpy and separated.) i pressed on it (to squeeze water out) with another towel on top. novi even helped with this using her small rolling pin.

i put it aside to dry overnight… and it actually took about a day and a half. once it was dry, i attempted to cut it into cute flower shapes; however, as i suspected, it was crumbly and very little of it was able to be cut. i tried and struggled a bit to get a few good pieces that look like flowers. you could also make hearts, butterflies, or whatever you wish… or whatever you can manage to cut. i get the sense that using cookie cutters when the pulp is almost dry would work better. or even using a stencil after to make a nice, clean shape. i think that next time we do it, we will try for a finer pulp so that it can be spread more thin on the felt, and hopefully stick together enough to make a sheet.

then we chose some colors to make a few cards, and glued the seed paper flowers onto the cards, using buttons for flower centers.

we will write a note inside with the planting instructions for the pastel zinnias in hopes that the recipients will watch these paper flowers bloom into real blossoms… sweet spring, easter, or mother’s day cards.

last weekend novi and i went to our local waldorf school’s spring faire, where many crafts were being made… mostly with wool, true to the waldorf spirit.

while i didn’t initiate these (nor did i take pictures of them being made – sorry) i wanted to share what we learned and created so that you may be able to do this, too. the theme was spring, and we made some little friends to hang out with this season.

first was the pipe cleaner and wool caterpillar. he’s a fuzzy cute guy made by bending a piece of pipe cleaner in half, and fashioning some antennae out of the top, like so:

then we wrapped colorful wool roving around and around his body until he was all covered in fuzz. i curled his antennae at the end so that the pipe cleaner wouldn’t be sharp, though some kids at the faire coated the antennae in felt all the way to the tip, as well.

next we made a furry bunny rabbit. this was done in the “make a pompom” fashion, which if you’re a knitter or crocheter, you probably already know how to do. the cool thing is that novi could do a lot of this on her own, as we were using very wide (about 1.5″) natural colored wool roving instead of thin yarn.

here’s how ya do it. sorry i didn’t take pictures of the process – it was sort of awkward to do so, as a kindergarten waldorf teacher was just sweetly whispering instructions to novi as she did this, oh-so-quietly and slowly, while taking breaks to run screaming like a wild banshee normal 3-year-old through the grass in between steps, and asking the teachers “why is everyone just whispering here?” anyway, here’s the how-to, but you can google “how to make a pompom” if you are visual (like me) and need to see pictures.

• cut two piece of cardboard into the shape of a doughnuts. the bigger the bunny, the bigger the doughnut. (ours were about 5″ in diameter with about a 2″ in diameter hole in the middle.)
• hold the two cardboard pieces together and wrap the yarn evenly around the doughnut in a circle, working around the cardboard until the hole is full, but don’t wrap too tightly or cutting will be hard to do. don’t worry if you happen to run out of yarn – just leave the ‘tail’ on the outside and start with a new length of yarn. (this is the part novi did with very little assistance. the rest is for the grown-ups.)
• once the wrapping is complete, use the scissors to cut along the edge of the doughnuts a few layers of yarn at a time until you reach the cardboard.
• pull the two cardboard pieces apart slightly, and using another piece of yarn, wrap it a few times along the middle and tie tightly.
• pull out the cardboard pieces or cut a slit through the cardboard pieces so that they can be pulled away easily.
• fluff up your little pompom bunny.

take a look at the figure and see which part could become the head. then tie a piece of white yarn around what would be the neck so that the head stands apart a little bit from the body. then you can gently pull two pieces of the wool roving up with your fingers to create bunny ears. and there you have your faceless waldorf bunny.

except that when we got home, novi said “where’s his face?!” so she opted to glue buttons on for eyes and a nose… “blue eyes just like mine!” as opposed the the usual red rabbit eyes.

i imagine we’ll be making a lot of little springy friends this season, using various methods, so stay tuned and your spring altars, seasonal tables, and easter baskets will be chocked full of sweet little handmade creatures!

ah, the luck of the irish! my daughter is 1/8th irish, as my husband is 1/4th… (no irish in me, but i did enjoy a brief trek through ireland back in college.) i figured that we should celebrate st. patrick’s day with some sort of craft, in honor of novi’s bloodline…

who couldn’t use more luck? thus, blarney stones! in ireland, the famous blarney stone resides at the top of blarney castle in the southwest part of the country, where tourists climb winding stairs just to kiss the stone. this is said to give them “blarney” which means luck, but more specifically eloquence. (um, the gift to gab isn’t really something my daughter needs more luck with!) in the craft world, it seems that blarney stones are traditionally rocks painted green, with little faces on them (kissing faces usually) or they could have shamrocks on them, instead.

we figured it’d be fun to make our own blarney stones for our seasonal altar at home. we collected a few smooth stones with a flat bottom from our backyard flowerbed and washed them. then we gathered up our crafty materials and green acrylic paint (well, we mixed our dark green with some yellow to make more of a kelly green color.)

we painted each of them (except one*) green and let them dry. to speed that along, i used a hairdryer on low heat.

after they were dry, we glued on googly eyes, felt mouths, embroidery floss hair, and even a hat made of felt and a flower sequins adornment.

after making three blarneys to kiss all month long, novi had enough, so i painted a shamrock onto the fourth stone with glitter glue (which might make a cute good luck charm to give to someone someday?)

* novi was adamant about “keeping the last stone natural!!!” so we did, and she gave it to her “good luck care bear” as his st. patrick’s day gift.

this is an easy and seasonal variation on pet rocks…  it can be fun any time of year to make a face on a rock, but if you want the luck of the irish on your side, be sure to kiss these green cuties every day!

when i was a little girl, i used to love melting down my old crayons into new and improved crayon shapes, so i thought this would be fun to do with novi this year. (for some reason, my childhood memories of melted wax involve styrofoam meat trays…??) we have a heart mini-muffin pan, which is fitting for the season. my ubercrafty friend over at pink and green mama did this with her daughter last year, as well, so i checked out her blog to learn about the oven settings.

all year, novi and i have saved up broken crayons and crayons from restaurants.

novi helped me to peel off the paper and break them into small chunks. (fyi: peeling cheap restaurant crayons is not the most fun task.)

we divvied the chunks up into the heart pan.

then we baked them at 250 degrees for about 15 minutes. i CAREFULLY had to carry the tray across the kitchen (minimal wax drippage onto new kitchen sisal rug. ick.) to the fridge where i set them to cool for about 15 minutes. to my surprise, they popped out of the tray very easily.

we put each one into a little valentine bag with a nametag on it and a note in it saying “i heART you” for all of novi’s friends. (hey, puns are okay for toddlers.)

though some of the baby siblings of novi’s friends, who are not yet in the crayon stage, got some felt hearts that i sewed for them instead.

put a little ART in your heART, valentine!