paint cut paste

in our home, we like to have some time of day, at least once, where we light a candle together. usually this is a ritual around dinner time and sometimes as a special treat at N’s bedtime when we tell stories by candlelight in her bedroom. when i recently spotted this cool glass paint, i had to pick some up so we could personalize our candles even more by upcycling some clear jars.

we set up shop out on the picnic table in the backyard with our supplies and some mason jars and baby food jars. (yes, we bought baby food specifically for the jars. N didn’t touch the stuff as a baby, as i made her food, but i figured we could use the bananas in some banana pancakes, right?)

N had such a good time painting on the glass…

after they were all painted, we set them out to dry for 48 hours (per instructions on the paint.)

(still haven't made anything from our holey shells from vacay)

then we baked them in the oven (also per paint instructions) on 325 for 30 minutes, allowing them to heat up and cool down with the oven on either side of that baking time. this allows the paint to adhere to the glass – love the alchemy!

after they had cooled, the jars were all shiny and ready for tealights and votive candles. love these little ones for our back patio!

N chose to put the large mason jar she painted on her nightstand for story time at night. magical!

she chose to put the “sunrise-sunset jar” on which we collaborated on her bedroom shelf.

i just love when art activities evolve organically, and from a child-centered place. we’ve been spending a lot of time in the yard lately, and N is a bigtime twig gatherer. and lemme tell ya, we have some amazingly flexible, shiny, cool twigs in these parts.

wish i knew what types of trees these were.

the giving tree

yesterday N was collecting all sorts of sweet sticks… today, when i suggested putting them into a pretty vase, she said, “noooo, i want to make a vase out of them!” um, okay. improvise, momma! so i grabbed an empty honey jar and a couple rubber bands, and we went to work, covering the outside of the jar with the twigs, securing them with rubber bands at the top and bottom.

N helped with this for a long time, and i had to finish it up. it’s somewhat tedious for little hands. she took lots of breaks to gather more twigs.

keepin' on keepin' on

eventually the whole jar was covered with twigs that extended from its base to about an inch above its top lip, secured by two rubber bands. (i had to trim some of the longer twigs with scissors.)

i slid the rubber bands into the center, and covered them with raffia, (realizing that the blue rubber bands weren’t gonna get fully hidden, so i switched them out with tan ones, so be sure to start with tan if you do this.) N picked some flowers from our yard for the vase, and our creation was complete and functional!

i’m not entirely loving the raffia, and may change it to a groovy rustic ribbon. (mostly because my cat chews in raffia and will flip this vase over in two seconds flat if it’s in her range.)

it did make for a wonderfully earthy dinner centerpiece tonight.

while i’m not necessarily posting daily photos of us outdoors for the entirety of this blog in april, most of our projects lately and this month will involve mother earth, so….

thank you, 5 orange potatoes, for getting the kids outside!