paint cut paste

over spring break in april, it was time for me to plant some potted herbs for the season. with all of the fairy house excitement as of late, N wanted to make them into “fairy herb gardens,” naturally.

even without her own pinterest account, this trend seemed to seep into the consciousness of my 5-year-old. go figure. first we potted the herbs into two large pots. N said that she would decorate the basil and rosemary pot, and the other (sage, cilantro, and parsley) was for me to adorn. i felt honored to get to do one, as i assumed she’d do both. yay!

she decided we needed our shrinky dink herb tags here, but the ones we made a couple years ago weren’t the same types of herbs, so we spent an afternoon making new shrinky dink tags. (easy steps: scribble with colored pencil on rough side, cut shape, write herb name with sharpie on smooth side, heat shrink, stick in soil.)

then it was time for the houses. i gave her a choice of using natural materials (like she does in the yard) or painting some wooden birdhouses we have ($1 bin at michael’s.) she chose the painted route, and we got to work on our fairy houses.

next we gathered up some items for landscaping… like colorful marbles, stones, shells, sea glass, and even a few of the lovely painted sticks we made a couple years ago. N excitedly designed her fairy herb pot.

she spent a lot of time getting everything just right for the fairies. what a hostess!

the herb pots are so darn sweet… and we’ve spent some time over the past month (has it been that long!!!??!) clipping sprigs of herbs for our dinners and sprucing up the fairy neighborhoods.

my little fairy-lover has been making fairy houses out of natural materials for months. she loves to create them, and then check back in on them the following day to see if she sees signs of fairy activity. (sometimes the “fairies” leave colorful marbles or sparkly treasures for her overnight. *wink*) i just love these spontaneous nature creations that can happen without purchasing any materials or having any agenda. open-ended, outdoor art supreme!

on a recent family picnic in the park sort of sunday, she worked hard to create a fairy house at the base of a redwood tree.

she also loves making them in our backyard…

and adding to this one in her school yard during outside playtime…

do your little ones like to create little homes in nature? i’d love to hear about what you’re making. for some really sweet inspiration, we love this book on fairy houses. it’s one of our go-to bedtime reads at the moment. stay tuned for our fairy herb garden, coming up on the blog in a coupla days…

this rainbow carnation experiment is one i remember from my own childhood. not only is it a visually appealing activity, it’s also a great way for kids to learn the science behind water is absorbed by plants and how it travels through the different part of a flower.

the inspiration for this post was an old spice rack i had sitting in the garage. what wonderful little vials these are for this experiment! we grabbed some food coloring and white carnations (we had some in the bouquet we bought for our butterfly habitat – all of this happened a few weeks ago, i’m just late bringing it to the blogging world.)

N had fun dropping food coloring into the water, and creating her favorite color, since it was not in the cheapo food coloring pack we had – purple!

she placed a white carnation into each tiny vase, and we put them out of the way of our flower-chomping cat…

and waited. i asked N, “what do you think will happen next?” she said that maybe the flowers would grow, and that they might drink the colored water. let’s see if her hypothesis is correct…

even within a day and a half, we saw the petals taking on the colors of the water they were drinking.

ten days later, the colors were distributed throughout the different parts of the flower. we noticed that the purple color was not as saturated in the carnation as the other colors, and the darker colored waters in general seemed to be more full in the end.

there are some explanations of this experiment online that we checked out, like this one from ehow. i didn’t find any scientific reason the darker waters would not be absorbed as much. in fact, most of the write-ups i saw recommend using darker colors for more dramatic results. all in all, we had a rainbowy flowery good time with this one!

have you tried making rainbow carnations? if so, what did you notice?

“Did you hear that winter’s over?
The basil and the carnations cannot control their laughter.”

-Rumi

hooray for spring!

earth day is coming up this weekend, and what better way to celebrate than to experience some of mother nature’s magic?! we’ve just witness a slice of this in our house — following a butterfly from the larva stage through to the butterfly stage before our widened eyes…

N has always been interested in the stages of a butterfly, from her favorite book as a 1 year old (the very hungry caterpillar, of course) to the awesome butterfly storybox she created last spring! (have you seen this thing?) N received this groovy butterfly kit from insect lore for her birthday, and while i’m not getting paid at all for this review, i’d recommend it to anyone. (great birthday gift!)

we waited until temperatures were seasonably warm, and sent away for butterfly larvae in the mail. when the container arrived, there were six larvae inside, which looked like super-small caterpillars. see:

about five days later, the caterpillars had grown much larger…

four days after that, the caterpillars had munched their way to their maximum size. (that tan stuff in the jar with them is their food.)

the had entered chrysalis stage only two days after that. it’s hard to see here, but five of them attached to the lid of the jar (as expected) but the sixth formed its cocoon on the bottom of the jar. we weren’t sure if that dude would make it, and ultimately and sadly, he did not.

now it was time to transfer the chrysalids to their new netted habitat provided in the kit. the instructions said to pin the paper to which they’d attached to the net a few inches above the bottom. my husband (the less skeeved-out one) did the deed with the little one lending support.

in their new home!

we watched and watched. and waited and waited.

and on the eighth day, our first painted lady butterfly pushed her way out, unfurled her wet wings, and was a beautiful butterfly!

over the next four days, all five butterflies were born! each day, we read one of N’s favorite books, butterfly birthday, and sang happy birthday to the butterflies as they came into the world in their new form. we put carnations drizzled with sugar water and tangerine slices in their habitat, which N prepared.

we hung out with them until the youngest butterfly was one day old.

on easter sunday, we brought the habitat into our backyard and unzipped it… one by one, we watched each butterfly take flight! it was so exciting for N …and for me and my husband, too!

what an a beautifully educational and magical spring activity to do with children! i think we might have to get the ladybug kit next…

how are you celebrating earth day on sunday?

wool roving is quickly becoming one of our favorite art materials around here. N learned how to felt stones at school recently, to make them into colorful, fuzzy eggs for spring. she came home all excited to teach me and my husband how to make some, too. so we let her lead in teaching us this activity.

first we gathered supplies: egg-shaped smooth stones (we have collected tons of beach rocks perfect for this,) colorful wool roving, a bowl of warm, soapy water, and a towel.

each of us selected a stone with which to work, and we each chose a first color of wool. i wasn’t able to take step-by-step photos of this because my hands were soon wet and soapy, but it’s pretty easily explained and if you want a photo tutorial, there’s a good one here on lil fish studios blog.

we spread out the wool and wrapped the first layer around the rock until it covers the stone entirely. you can use a felting needle to close the seam here, if you’d like, but it’s unnecessary. then we dipped the stone into the bowl of warm soapy water. once it was wet, we tossed the wet stone back and forth between our hands. it’s a gentle, repetetive motion of back and forth, which can be very soothing.

kid hands, husband hands

you can even squirt some liquid soap into your palms for this part, if you’d like. after the wool seems to adhere together a bit, wrap your second color around the stone in the same way and repeat. you might not want to cover the first color entirely – it’s fun to see it show through.

back and forth

we chose to wrap our rocks with three colors each. after they were wrapped, we put them on a plate to dry. N informed us it would take “a whole day plus a night” to dry.

she was right – in about 24 hours our egg/rocks were dry… and oh so cute!

since we made ours as egg shapes and in spring colors, they are so wonderful with our spring/easter decorations! i’d love to make some solid color ones (like she did on lil fish studios) as pretty stone gifts, too.

large one on left is N's egg, small ones in nest are my husband's and mine

for N’s fifth birthday, we gave her a small aquarium, and she was able to pick out two goldfish and a snail as new pets. well, sadly her sweet snail, marigold, didn’t last more than a month. (something about nitrates in the water, for which we have since gotten new water purification drops.) with this gift, we realized that the difficult lessons of mortality would soon be upon us, and here they are, sooner than we expected.

r.i.p. marigold

in its inherent transcendent nature, art is able to make the invisible visible, to make the unseen seen. according to carl jung, the processes involved in art making are most similar to spiritual processes than any activity – both provide comfort, order, and beauty. when the art image is the embodiment of a feeling, such as the grief of a loss (yes, even that of a pet snail,) the art object can becomes empowered as a talisman of sorts, providing containment and solidity for an otherwise nebulous emotion. the art we all made as offerings in the snail’s funeral helped to elevate the ceremony to that of a ritual, modeling for N healthy ways of saying goodbye and processing feelings that can be difficult.

artful altar for marigold

once we broke the news to N that marigold had passed on, we decided we would hold a ceremony the following day in our backyard to celebrate his life and return his body to the earth. i explained to N that we might each want to have an offering for marigold on an altar space at the ceremony. she said she wanted to make a backdrop for the altar, a small sign, and a golden candle.

N creating the altar "backdrop." details on this technique coming soon on the blog. stay tuned!

N rolled a golden candle from beeswax for the altar, and made a little image of herself and marigold.

my husband offered flowers, and he cut heart shapes out of petals for the altar. i chose to offer a yellow snail candle holder that i quickly crafted with sculpey when N was asleep the evening prior to the funeral. (i don’t like to bake sculpey near her because of the fumes, so i did it at night with the windows and backdoor open while she was asleep in her room with her door closed.)

dried berries & branches for antennae

we gathered together around the altar in the backyard last weekend. my husband and i both said kind words and memories about marigold. N said she was “too shy” to say anything, but stood quietly and chin-quivery in front of the altar.

we buried marigold’s body in our flowerbed, where so many snails swarm in the spring. marigold’s spirit will be in good company in the coming months. N added a rock for his gravestone, and she decorated the grave site with her daddy’s heart petal offerings.

here lies marigold. as far as snails go, he was fast and sweet.

after a mindful, heartful goodbye to her snail, N was ready to move on to the reception food (popsicles) and making fairy houses in the backyard.

this weekend i surprised my amazing husband with a super-fun gift for his birthday — spending the night in a local treehouse! and, of course, my daughter enjoyed the experience most of all! (i kept it a secret from her, as well. she’s not the best surprise-keeper, so i figured it was safer this way.) i just have to share this magical, inspirational experience with you all…

a few weeks ago, i was in bed, flipping through properties on my airbnb iphone app (so addictive!) and daydreaming about travel. i came across the special feature on the app showing houses in trees, and found a treehouse “b&b” of sorts that’s about 15 minutes from where we live! click here to check out the video about it!

i knew i’d stumbled upon a gem, so i booked it for just one night, unbeknownst to my family. on friday we arrived at the 3pm check-in time. we got a tour of this creative hideaway from its owner and builder, doug. such a cozy, unique spot! (incase you’re wondering: electricity and heat = yes. plumbing = no… but access to a private bath & kitchenette down in the main house.)

this is N's bed - we slept in a queen-sized loft bed just above

one part i loved is that there are hens on the property! this took me back to my own childhood where we had hens in our yard, and i collected their eggs each day to sell by the dozen and use the money go buy their feed – my first entrepreneurial experience at age 7! N got to have the experience of collecting their organic eggs for our breakfast the next morning. one of the hens (which i understand to be an andalusian chicken) lays beautiful pale blue-green eggs!

which were delicious, by the way!

two blue, one white, one brown

N spent a lot of time outdoors building “fairy tree houses” with natural objects she found on the ground…

…and swinging on their fabulous tree swing – a big hit!

swinging happily below

if you’re ever in the bay area, i highly recommend spending the night in a tree! it was a really interesting way to commune with nature, to listen to (and being part of) the creeeeaking of the tree moving in the wind all night long. (nope, we didn’t sleep much, but it was worth it.) it was a lovely place to watch the sun set and then rise again over the SF bay. and a sweet way to get up close and personal with other tree-dwellers.

N enjoyed making her artistic mark on their guest book, too!

happy birthday to my loving, brilliant, grounded, supportive husband!