paint cut paste

i’m a big fan of prayer flags or anything that resembles them. and what better thing to pay homage to than food? (well for me. eat, pray, love – right?) anyway, i saw this awesome idea on alphamom to do a fourth of july bunting using starfruit. i fully intended to do this before the holiday, but after combing 5 grocery stores/produce markets here, there is just no starfruit to be found. we improvised and took a different path.

novi and i gathered up some fun and sturdy shapes at wholefood’s produce section. then i sliced them in half and let them sit face down for about an hour on a towel, to absorb any extra moisture.

to prepare, the night before i had cut up some natural-colored linen (i purchased some from jo ann’s fabrics – you could also use white or cream burlap or other fabrics) into 8″ by 5″ rectangles, with a little help from my cat. i frayed the edges by hand because i love the raw look of that.

novi and i chose some colors from our fabric paint stash (you can also use acrylics) and began to paint the flat sides of the fruits and veggies to do some printmaking. (you can dip them in the paint, but we went this route so we wouldn’t waste any paint by leaving it in a dipping pan.)

we chose different colors for each of the different pieces of produce, and pressed them firmly onto the linen, toward the bottom of each rectangle. (this is to leave room for a pocket at the top for the rope to go through to hang them later.)

it was so much fun to see the colorful shapes emerge on the fabric.

we let them dry all afternoon, while we admired our work.

the next day, i pinned and sewed each flag across the top to make a pocket for a rope to go through.

sadly, i was impressed with my ability to do this. i am NOT a sewer.

alphamom’s blog said you could use fabric glue instead to create the loop for the rope, but i used this as an opportunity to practice using the sewing machine my dear friend gave me before she moved to bali. (i mean, this was the next best thing if i couldn’t move there with her, right? wow, this is becoming an eat, pray, love post in a coupla ways.)

i got some nice rope at the hardware store for 14 cents per foot. after putting the rope through the loop at the top, we were super-pleased with the results.

the banner/flags/garland is now hanging in our kitchen window… where else?

during the printmaking process, we got a little overzealous about the fact that cauliflower makes cute little trees, so we made an extra banner of all of the “tiny trees” we printed.

more ideas:

• i got word that there’s a shipment of starfruit coming in tomorrow to a local grocer, so you just may see some star bunting in our future, after all… it’ll be more on the aquatic-colored starfish side of things than fourth of july though.
• another thing i’d love to do with all of our extra lined rectangles is to do some leaf printing on them like the artful parent shows here.
• you can also print letters to spell out a word or name.
• it would be great to do a different child’s handprint on each piece of fabric, say for a school class banner (think: teacher appreciation) or to give to a grandparent who has several grandkids, or for yourself, (if you have enough little hands and feet in your house to make a decent length garland of your own kids’ paws.)
• printed fabric squares make for lovely garland, flags, pockets to sew onto aprons, book-covers, etc, etc, etc…

let your imagination run with it and string it up on the wall!

what a perfect thing to do on these sunny summer days – make your own nature photos with sun art paper!

on saturday, novi had a friend over to play. i tasked them with finding interesting looking natural objects in our backyard. they mostly gathered leaves and flowers.

then we went into the shade and pulled out a couple sheets of our sun art paper. (i bought three sizes of it from amazon over the winter, when i was daydreaming of sunny days ahead. this time we used the 5″x7″ paper.) we arranged the leaves and flowers on the paper before going into the sun.

next we put a clear acrylic sheet (comes with the paper) over the objects. this holds down your things so they don’t blow away in the wind or move around while exposure is happening. each sun art paper kit comes with just one, but if you want to do more than one at a time, raid your picture frame stash (especially the cheap plastic ones) and borrow some more from those. we left the paper in the sun for just 3-5 minutes (until it turns a very light blue.)

next we put the papers into a tub of water for one minute. because we wanted out images to turn out a deeper shade of blue, i added a few drops of lemon juice to the water (like it said to on the package.)

we repeated the process with more leaves and flowers… and some bubble wands, too!

after the prints have soaked for a minute, let them dry on a towel. (once completely dry, you can press them in a book for a day or so to make sure they are flat.)

the girls had fun watching how their pictures turned out, but mostly they were psyched just to run around with their popsicles. (perhaps the reason the package of sun art paper says for ages 6+)

these beautiful natural prints would make lovely cards, but i think i will frame this batch in a series to display in our home.

she's quite proud.

it is easy being green! who couldn’t use another reusable canvas bag – for groceries, target runs, library books, the farmer’s market, playdates, dance class, etc.? we decided to customize some springy totes for novi’s preschool teachers and dance teacher in honor of teacher appreciation week!

i bought a 3-pack of tote bags from michael’s for $9 (individual bags for $4.) they’re a nice 13″ size for carrying lots of things! i also got three colors of non-toxic fabric paint for about $1.40 each. (they sell assorted color sets for more money, but i thought i needed a larger amount of just three colors.)

then we got down to business… i used a sponge brush to paint the fabric paint onto novi’s hand. then she pressed her handprints (reapplying paint in between) on the bags in a radial fashion.

these made pretty flower petals. then she used a sturdy paintbrush to paint a center on each flower (in a different color) and a stem with leaf on each one.

you could personalize further by writing or stamping a person’s name on each tote, but we liked them as is. just let them dry for 4 hours, and you’re good to bag up your stuff!

these made great gifts for novi’s teachers, (along with these custom gift tags drawn & written by novi.) the bags would also work nicely for mother’s day or a reusable gift bag to fill with goodies when celebrating a birthday, bridal/baby shower, or any spring/summer event!

and if you like novi’s shirt, it could be yours… click here!

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. novi 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.

love your mother.

happy earth week! i saw this sweet idea on the mackville road blog, and found it to be pretty ideal for my little gatherer and crayon lover. novi and i are no strangers to picking some leaves and flowers nor to melting some crayons between wax paper… this combined both!

once again, we spent the afternoon in the yard and novi gathered all sorts of leaves, petals, and flowers… even if that meant picking them from our flowerbed.

we collected them in the bottom tray from a flower pot. (it was handy.)

we gathered up some supplies, which include old crayons, a veggie peeler (to shave the crayons with,) some wax paper, an iron, and a towel.

after i shaved some of the crayons, novi arranged the flowers and other findings on the wax paper and sprinkled on the crayon shavings.

when we were finished arranging, it looked like this:

we put another piece of wax paper on top, then a dishtowel. i ironed it on the maximum setting, but nothing seemed to be happening. i’d recommend using a very thin towel or cloth napkin — or you can do what i did and risk ironing directly onto the top sheet of wax paper. (somehow this worked out okay…??!?) then voila — our spring collection preserved in a sun catching way!