paint cut paste

if you follow me on pinterest, you know that i’m a sucker for garland. and prayer flags. and anything resembling these celebratory, sacred, strung-up beauties. so recently when dreaming up handmade and meaningful decor for two friends’ baby blessing ceremony i co-hosted, garland came to mind, of course! specifically, i was inspired by a pin i saw by a beautiful mess. i knew this would be a sweet touch to this particular ceremony.

my fellow art therapist friends and i love to create unique rituals for participants at blessing ceremonies we have thrown for one another and for other family members and friends. many of these art rituals have been featured on my blog already, such as the  woven watercolor blessing, the blessing nest, the blessing sunburst, and momma birthing necklaces or sibling blessing necklaces. this blessing garland fits right in, as it is a simple, collaborative project that can be easily done at a gathering (of any sort!) and it is not an intimidating art project in the slightest.

first, i combed fabric stores to find five colors (in this case, along the nursery color scheme) of lovely fabric. i scored with this silk and a pretty golden cord to tie them to.

once i got the supplies home, i began to tear the fabric into strips that were about a half inch wide.

i love the look of the torn edges

then i cut each one to about 8.5 inches long to make several strips of fabric in each of the colors.

i performed some experiments with markers and pens to discover which worked best on the silk. this is the way party-goers would be able to write their blessings onto the fabric. in the silk’s case, gelly roll pens worked best, as the sharpies and even the fabric markers ran and bleed on the fabric.

i tied blank silk tabs onto the golden cord in a random color order. this way the garland could serve as party decor before guests were able to add to it.

at the blessing, i placed many silk strips and glitter pens into a bowl near the garland with a note, asking guests to write blessings for the baby on the way on the silk, and tie it onto the cord wherever they would like.

after each guest added a blessing or two to the cord, the couple put the garland around a doorway in the baby’s room. they plan to hang it in the birthing center when they are ready to meet their daughter.

i love how such a simple, little touch added another artful element of love and support to this blessing ceremony and to this growing family!

over the weekend, we had the absolute pleasure of celebrating N’s fifth birthday with a bunch of woodland creatures! our little fox/owl/deer/bunny/bear-lover requested a “forest animal” birthday party this year, so i did my best to interpret N’s request and had an awesomely artful time doing so!

you know how we’re big on birthday themes over here. first we decided to ask my friend, meredyth hite, the one-woman show behind the amazing vegan bakery in the bay area, bliss bakery, to create nut-free, gluten-free, vegan cupcakes (to accommodate all of the dietary restrictions among N’s friends and ourselves!) after i perused pinterest for ideas, i asked meredyth to create fly agaric mushroom cupcakes, displayed in a rustic wood setting — and WOW! she sooo beautifully and deliciously delivered!

mushrooms are foresty, sure. but now i had to figure out how to incorporate the forest animals into the party, since that’s what N had specifically requested. i asked my talented friend, chris willow, of the mamaroots shop on etsy and of the inspiring mamaroots blog, to create five candle holders for my five year old — each a different woodland creature. i order her sweet candle holders as birthday gifts all the time for friends, so it was time that N got her own.

forest friends enjoying the party

our custom set of cute candle holders by mamaroots

and for some more forest animal action, i decided to make 36 (yes, thirty-six) felt animal masks to give to the children at the party. instead of sewing them all, like my mom and i did for N’s halloween owl costume, i used craft glue to afix the features onto the felt, and just sewed the elastic bands onto each one. muuuch easier for a bulk order like this. (reminder: you can click any of the photos on my blog to see them enlarged.)

the bday girl selected these for momma to make: bear, owl, deer, fox, raccoon, bunny

mask basket at the party

the masks were a hit — what a fun party favor!

in addition to the mask party favor, i decided to create some magical acorn necklaces with allll of these acorn caps N collected at the park one day. i just hot glued felted wool balls (here’s a nice video tutorial on how to make them) into the caps. next, i hot glued baker’s twine to the tip of each cap to make them into necklaces. in hindsight, i should have drilled a hole into each cap before putting the wool ball into it so i could thread the string through, but this worked out just fine and was (i imagine) easier to execute.

they looked so cute pinned to a giant redwood tree for the kids to see and select.

there's even a creek babbling by this woodsy park - perfect setting!

for decor, i wanted to keep it earthy, and decided to sew some fabric scrap garland to string between the trees. i used scraps of fabric i had leftover from my bean bag project, and cut them into circles. then i just fed them through the machine, double-sided (right sides facing out.)

strung between the redwoods

the party was basically a playdate in the park from 2-4pm, so being so brief and in between meals, we just served hot apple cider, water, popcorn, fruit, and of course, those adorable cupcakes. to keep things simple and eco-chic, i used compostable hot beverage cups, cloth napkins from my fav cloth napkin etsy seller – love for earth, and no plates. (who needs plates with this light fare?)

i even used our rustic rock picture holders for display signs around the party.

despite the chilly day and the muddy park, the birthday girl and her friends had a blast! N barely stopped chasing her friends around the playground for a sip of apple cider – but she did brake for cupcakes! also, can you tell i had a good time pulling this one off?

we created such beautiful memories of N’s fifth birthday — and now we get to celebrate again on january 26th, when she actually turns FIVE! i know people always say, “where does the time go?” but i feel lucky (and friggin’ tired!) because it seems like i’ve been there for every minute of it all. happiest of birthdays to the sweetest and most energetic woodland creature i know!

we’ve yet to really begin valentine creation over here. generally, we wait for N’s birthday party to be over before we go on to prepare for valentine’s day. but there is one little heart craft i’ve indulged in, because, as my pinboard says, i’m a sucker for garland. and paint chips. and hearts. and easy things to sew.

i pinned this about 6 months ago, originally from ohcrafts.net. so i’ve been psyched to do it for a while, and tiz the season now. i grabbed my trusty heart hole punch and some paint chips from my stash (yes, all of us crafty mom bloggers have paint chip stashes. we’re a weird breed.)

i punched away until there were hearts of many rainbowy colors.

even just this heart confetti is splendid to look at and to play with!

the little one had fun using the punched out paint chips as stencils.

cute as they were on their own, i still took it to the sewing machine and fed each one through while keeping a fairly steady, slow pace with the needle. it was easier than i thought, and the machine was forgiving if i had a few stitches in between each heart. for me, that was an experiment, as i am still learning how to sew.

stitched together

i heart this!

then i got heart-happy and stitched a few more hearts to some colorful paper. i think i’ll add these to some valentine’s day cards soon!

this garland looks festive in our kitchen right now, but notice that hearts are top heavy… expect some twists and turns, or maybe opt for sewing them up double-sided.

this also might make a cute addition to our february mantel, which i’ll share when the time comes (after birthday season!)

strung along

creating garland out of the natural beauty of autumn leaves is always a favorite activity of ours. this time, we made it even more vibrant!

we have gone on many leaf collecting walks around our neighborhood these past few week, and brought home some beauties. we pressed them for about 24 hours or so to flatten them out.

the opportunity to mod podge our autumn leaves passed us by last year somehow, but this year we were able to do so. after the leaves were pressed, i applied a coat of mod podge to each side of each leaf (in the evening – thus the dark photo – sorry.) this preserves the color and returns some suppleness to the leaves — like magic!

notice it doesn't say "modge podge" on the bottle, folks.

once they were dry, N and i got out our wooden beads and some wire to string the garland.

we wrapped each bead through twice, to hold it in place.

we had fun interspersing beads with the leaves, and it looked pretty when finished.

now we have it hanging over our balcony for thanksgiving time… (but secretly, i’m sooo ready for christmas decorations instead!)

as you have seen on the blog lately, i’ve been trying to spruce up my autumn mantel. i think it’s an ever-evolving process, but i do want to share a little creation i made at the suggestion of one of my readers – thank you anna lucia – felt leaf garland!

after creating the autumn wreath and the BOO halloween pumpkins, i did feel that something was missing in tying it all together. i was anticipating N making our favorite real leaf garland for the mantel or using our paper roll pumpkin garland again this year, but instead it seemed my mantel needed another touch of felt to bring the look together. i cut (freehand, be nice) various leaf-like shapes into the same colors of felt we used in our wreath. (you could trace real leaves for shape accuracy, but i was just freestyling it while watching tv the other night.)

i pinned them together, slightly overlapping, and set out to sew.

the sewing was quick and painless (even for a beginner like myself!) i just had to lift the pedal foot sometimes so as not to have a leaf’s tip get folded onto itself. no biggie.

the garland looks pretty cute on our halloween mantel, and it will likely stay there beyond the halloween decorations and until thanksgiving.

i’m not totally loving the mantel’s fall face, but there’s always next year to try something fresh, like maybe this amazing green autumn mantel. okay, now back to the KID ART, right? (sorry for the mom-tinkering and home decorating as of late – i’m a little preoccupied… and inspired!) do you create seasonal mantels in your home?

in the words of N’s favorite muppet show special guest star, alice cooper, “school’s out for summer!” that means that N is graduating from preschool, and the class presented a really sweet gift to the teacher/school yard on the last day of class — handprint garden flags! (can you tell which parent coordinated this creation? um yeah, i’m a little obsessed with flags/garland over here.)

i cut and sewed a cord pocket onto these little linen fabric squares the same way i’ve done for the food flags and leaf print garden flags, of course. then i gave one out to each family in the class to take home with simple instructions to use fabric paint for handprints and their child’s name (which have been removed from photos for privacy) and to bling out their flag with whatever else they’d like. we got busy handprinting N’s.

in a few weeks, i received a rainbow of lovely handprints from each kid in class.

we worked on stringing them together on a white rope.

then the flags were ready to present to the most amazing preschool teachers ever!

i just love the details on each one – showing such personality! (wish you could see all of the names – they were so cute – but i want to protect the privacy of the kids in class.)

here’s to all the wonderful teachers out there in the world! happy summer!

i’ve seen sooo many cute ideas this season for ways of expressing thanks in a natural and artsy way! who else but the artful parent would present such a cute and clever idea as thanksgiving leaf garland? we had to try it!

first, N and i wandered around the neighborhood trying to find colorful leaves — somewhat of a tall order in these parts of the bay area. (one of the things i miss about the east coast!) we did manage to find some beauties. we got out the big books (art books, of course) and got read to press them.

we placed them in between the books for 24 hours to flatten.

the next day, we had so much fun writing on the leaves with metallic markers all of the things we are thankful for. tip: if you want to preserve the suppleness and color of the leaves, apply 1-2 coats of mod podge to each side after they’ve been pressed, and in this case, after you write on them. i’ll likely post a demo of this process soon.

N came up with lots of things she is thankful for, and we also made some leaves that were just cute designs and patterns.

she loved the leaves when they were finished!

i found a brown satin ribbon in my stash, and hot-glued the leaf stems to the back of the ribbon.

i realize it might be more legible against a plain wall, but i cannot resist hanging the garland in a sunny window in our home.

thankfulness for our two cats

i’m a sucker for the way light filters through beautiful colored leaves (and colorful artwork, for that matter!)

i also would love to try this awesome gratitude tree that i saw on playful learning – maybe next year!  count your blessings this thanksgiving!