we’ve been getting in the holiday spirit over here, making all sorts of fun christmas/solstice decor! as a little impromptu project, N kicked it old skool and created some christmas trees out of pine cones and pom poms the other day.
check out our “two ingredient tuesday” guest post on kiwi crate all about it!
what sorts of holiday decorations have your little ones been making this season?
we are definitely feeling the fall spirit over here! where we live, the leaves are slow to change, but now that it’s november, we are seeing more reds, oranges, and yellows brightening up the landscape. N and i went for a little leaf-hunting walk around the neighborhood the other day, and found a bounty of beauty!
what would you make with these fiery treasures?
also, we recently had a great time creating acorn cap jewels and blogged about them over on kiwi crate. go check out our process… it’s super easy. you can turn this:
into this:
happy fall!!!
now, what to make with those gorgeous leaves…???
the other day, N and i set out to play with one of our favorite art media — liquid watercolors. recently there was a $1 per bottle sale on these at discount school supply (regularly $2.99, but they offer discounts all the time,) so we stocked up at a buck each! i just loooove how vibrant and translucent liquid watercolors can be!
i just put out four colors this time: magenta, turquoise, yellow, and purple. (the first three are a variation on primary colors that i just heart, and they mix to create beautiful combos! purple wasn’t even necessary, but it’s N’s favorite, soooo….)
free art play! these are the afternoons i live for. we did tons of experimenting with techniques — such as white crayon resist:
wet on wet watercoloring (saturate your paper first with water, then paint or drop colors onto it and watch them spread like magic):
sprinkling salt onto the painted page and watching the paint gather toward the crystals to create a stippled effect:
then we did N’s favorite method – squirted elmer’s glue onto the page, covered it with salt, and watched the paint get soaked up by the lines and blend into rainbowy goodness:
we played quite a bit. we even busted out the shaving cream at the end and did some paper marbling with the remaining paint in the jars. (because i hate to waste gorgeous paint and just have to use it up!) we did this over two years ago on the blog when N was just a wee thing, so check out that post for the technique. it’s amazingly beautiful and fun!
this day yielded so many lovely creations!
it was such a colorful afternoon with my sweet girlie and our favorite paints.
we felt like the color kittens! (do you know that old golden book? it’s classic!)
as spring has just sprung, i’ve had nests on my mind. we’ve often done spring crafts involving nests and birds, but one of my favorite nesting projects is one that was done while N was still in utero, in the fall of 2006. a handful of my dearest friends created this nest with me and my husband at our blessingway ceremony. the nest still graces my daughter’s bedroom today.
as i’ve blogged about just a bit, a mother’s blessing ceremony or blessingway ceremony can be done in addition to or in lieu of a baby shower. the intention behind a blessing ceremony is to honor the mom-to-be (and/or the dad-to-be!) as they cross the threshold into parenthood.
three of my girlfriends from our art therapy graduate program and one of our closest guy friends held a two-day long ceremony such for us, during which we did several art and pampering rituals they planned — seven different rituals, to be exact. one of which was the blessing nest. we began by each meditating on the baby who was about to come into the world (N!) and the blessings we have for her life.
then we selected from a collection of beautiful ribbons and thin strips of lovely papers, and wrote our blessings on them with glittery pens.
we read the blessings aloud to each other, and to the little one listening from my belly.
my beautiful friend sharing one of her blessings
my friends had purchased a lovely twig nest, which she brought for us to weave our blessings through. (of course, you could create your own nest from local sticks, twigs, and twine.)
we had a wonderful time threading the ribbons and papers between the twigs, using a glue gun to secure their positions, while talking about this little person who was about to come into the world.
we added some green moss into the bed of the nest, to later hold the precious stones, rocks, and hand-painted (by N) eggs it now carries.
this beautiful nest is one of the most special keepsakes from my pregnancy, and it is infused with so much love for N from dear, sweet friends and from her mommy and daddy.
the winter solstice is upon us, where the days will begin to get longer from there. in celebration of bringing the light and due to its being the darkest day of the year, lanterns are often made in honor of the solstice. two years ago, we made a lovely lantern at the waldorf school where we were in a parent-child class with N before she turned 2. they made quite an impression on her, so i thought we’d make them the same way again for this winter solstice.
when seeking a how-to memory refresher online, i found the most lovely tutorial on the garden mama blog. seriously, her beautiful entry about these lanterns deems this one totally unnecessary, as she wrote the most poetic and wonderfully photographed tutorial on these i could imagine. but i’m going to (b)log our experience here, nonetheless.
admiring the finished product on a dark winter morning
we started by beginning the wet-on-wet watercolor process. we soaked three sheets of watercolor paper.
then we opted to dilute my tubes of professional grade watercolors in little jars of water, though you could just use regular watercolors for this. we also chose to only use primary colors, so as to make this an experiment in color-mixing.
N painted and painted, watching the colors run together and create new hues – magic!
when we were finished painting, she wanted a little more vibrance, so i pulled out the watersoluble crayons
we hung the masterpieces to dry overnight.
the next day we rubbed them with canola oil on a cloth, so as to make the paper more translucent when lit from within.
after the oil was dry (about a day) we cut fringe along the long side of the paper. we made two like the garden mama blog suggested (ever 2.5 inches, 2.5 inches long) and the third we only did at 1.5 x 1.5 inches.
we used a pillar candle to evenly roll the paintings around, and secured the edge with school glue, and clothespinned them until dry.
after they were dry, we folded the bottom tabs in to create a bottom.
then instead of putting real fire inside, i used little electric tea lights instead.
now we are ready for the darkest day of the year!
all ready to bring the light on december 21st! (which, incidentally, is my birthday 
)
by the way, those cute wooden reindeer you see in the photos were a custom set that the talented chris over at mamaroots made for N. we sooo love her creations!
if you read this blog, you know i’m not a fan of pre-fabricated crafts, but N couldn’t resist these grinch christmas craft kits when she spotted them at michael’s a couple weeks ago. our morning project was a kit of ceramic grinch-themed ornaments to paint.
she was so excited by the little pots of paint and the fact that she was painting “delicate glass!!!” as she said. i opted for real paintbrushes in lieu of the bad-hair-day brush that came with the set.
this was at least an hour of painting fun.
after they were dry…
we hung them on the tree, with pride.
in the afternoon, we embarked on our second grinch project of the day… grinch garland! this is essentially a glueing project, as all of the felt pieces in this kit are pre-cut.
the pieces
N picked out which ones she wanted to put where, and glued them together.
they were quite cute when finished, actually.
i strung the felt circles onto the provided silver thread, and hung them in N’s bedroom where she wanted to display them.
this wasn’t an expressive arts sort of day, with these pre-made crafty kits (blech!) but sometimes it’s satisfying to have a predictable product, i suppose…? given the choice between crafty kits and a seasick crocodile, i’d take the seasick crocodile!!! (nope, i’d take the art every time!)
día de los muertos, or the day of the dead, occurs on november 2nd, shortly after halloween. some rituals connected with this mexican holiday include creating altars honoring the dead using sugar skulls, marigold flowers, and the favorite foods of the departed. sometimes people visit cemeteries with these gifts honoring their ancestors. while the day of the dead is different than halloween, it is often lumped together with it since some of the iconography is similar. we decided to create our own little skull honoring the holiday and our ancestors for our altar at home.
N found a pre-made paper mache skull on a recent trip to michael’s that she really wanted to paint, which was the impetus for this project. she decided it should be white (like skulls are) so we got out some white acrylic and mixed it with a little silver for some shine. N began to paint.
after it was all painted white, she wanted to decorate it by gluing on different sequins, shimmery stones, and feathers.
embellishments
she had a great time putting on drops of glue and placing objects. my favorite moment was when she found a red plastic “crystal” and glued it to the forehead of the skull and said, “this can be one of his chakras!” what a proud reiki master momma i was in that moment.
N loved the finished skull with its different yellows, reds, golds — inspired by marigold flowers (though we had none.) after it was complete, she asked if it could “glow in the dark.” we didn’t use glow-in-the-dark paint, so i told her we could try to put an electric votive candle inside of it to make the inside glow. i had to use an x-acto knife to cut a little trap door in the bottom to get the “candle” inside, as it wouldn’t fit through the jaw.
she loved the effect — “magic!” though not made of sugar, the skull will be placed on an altar i made in grad school to honor our ancestors as an offering to those who’ve come and gone before us on november 2nd.
(a peek at my ancestry altar from 2003)
