paint cut paste

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.

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?

we are feeling springy over here this week… the trees are already pink and white with blossoms and it’s been in the mid to upper 60s this week. yesterday N and i went for a long afternoon walk around our neighborhood, looking for treasures and for signs of spring.

we meandered through streets, ducked through bushes, gazed up at trees… we collected all sorts of nature’s gifts, like leaves, sticks, berries, acorns, seeds, flowers… the sweet friends the earth has put in our new california neighborhood. we are still acclimating to our new digs, and feeling our way through the scenery out here. the specimens we gathered were like evidence of our move; like clues to our new surroundings. we studied them.

getting personal with a palm tree

when the sun was setting and we made our way home, i remembered a cool project i’d just seen in a very cool book N got for her birthday last month called nature’s art box. (i also recognized it from the artful parent blog as well.) the project was about making a clay fossil to preserve the textures and shapes of natural objects in sculpey.

bag of goodies

when we got home, we looked over each treasure while putting it into a bowl on our table. we talked about what it was and where we found it.

then, i busted out our trusty box of sculpey, and we went to work making and squishing little balls of the polymer clay.

then we pressed some of the objects into the clay to make textured discs. like little thumbprints from mother nature.

granted, scupley is not my most favorite clay to use with kids, as it can be toxic while baking. so, i made sure to do that part after N was asleep on the other end of the house with kitchen windows open and her door closed. (next time, i may try my trusty model magic and see if that works…)

after the discs were baked, i put them onto a pretty plate that we often keep on our nature table or altar.

i wrote with a brown sharpie on the backs of them what the object was, the city, and the date. N is enjoying examining them and guessing what made the print. they’re a good size for her to carry around and be proud of, too. it’d be nice to poke a hole in the top of some (or all) of the discs with a straw before baking to make pendants or ornaments out of them, too. i enjoy the white of them, but they may also be nice if painted (a light watercolor wash, perhaps) or glazed.

i loved doing this activity – mostly the walking, talking, and paying attention to so many intimate details. seeing the world through N’s big, new eyes always keeps things fresh for me. i’d love to repeat this activity in different places, like on a beach vacation, almost like a 3-d photo album from a trip, without the photos.

one of N’s little friends is totally into all things outer space. she adores planets and rocket ships, so this was the theme for her third birthday party. we decided to make her a gift that would be outta this world!

solar system on a string

N and i started by making beads with sculpey modeling clay of different spherical sizes to represent each planet. (i added a ring to saturn.) we poked holes in them with a paper clip.

then we baked the sculpey in the oven while opening all of the windows. (as i read the box afterwards, i realized that this stuff is kinda toxic while baking and probably isn’t the greatest material for younger kids. N colored by a window across the house while it baked.)

once the beads were hardened, we painted the planets all different colors, (and realized that at their most basic hue, many the planets almost follow ROY G BIV!) also, we opted to include pluto in the line-up for old times sake…

carefully painting the beads

after the beads were dry, we strung them onto a soft black cord (like outer space!) and made it into a very cool birthday necklace!

in a ring around the sun

okay, so this isn’t totally a kid-made craft like my other offerings, but little ones can certainly help with this one, and should! so, unfortunately my little peanut has a severe nut allergy (nuts, nut butters, nut extracts, nut oils.) since she’s almost three and is going to (a super-allergy-conscious) preschool these days, the chances of her being in someone else’s care without mommy and daddy around are becoming greater. so i wanted to share this little idea for a safety bracelet with you all who might have kids who need something similar.

all you need are some alphabet beads to spell whatever you want (no nuts, no shellfish, no dairy, diabetic, vegetarian, OR just do something fun like your kid’s name or a fun word instead!) then find a few other random beads from your collection at home (or cheap ones in the craft store.) i used some stretchy beading cord that i tied together (as seen at the amazon link below,) but you could also use beading wire if you wanted your bracelet to have a clasp.

then enlist the help of your child to string beads onto the cord or wire. using the letter beads can help with alphabet recognition and spelling, too – bonus! while we made ours, we talked more about N’s nut allergy, to make her more aware of it. (whenever she eats something new, she already asks everyone, including me, “does this have any nuts in it?”) i recommend making your little one fully aware of their allergy so they don’t need to rely on a bracelet, but it’s a good additional precautionary measure.

then you’ve got a little safety bracelet that your child can wear to preschool, playdates, etc. where they might have snacks out of your presence. hopefully this will signal to the adults around to be mindful of what they’re feeding your child, in the event that your child doesn’t speak up right away.