paint cut paste

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 novi 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 novi 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 novi 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. novi 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 novi’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.

this year we are taking part in the annual crafty crow ornament swap! the theme for the year is fairy tales… you know, kings, queens, princesses, gnomes, dragons. but they had me at fairy. always do.

fairies hanging out in our tree

so novi and i went hunting in our backyard for some natural materials to make fairy ornaments out of. we found tons of tiny pine cones.

thank you, trees

we baked the pinecones at 250 degrees for about an hour, to make sure the critters were gone and because the sappy stuff in the cones gives them a nice shiny glow after baking. the house smelled divine! (that’s the closest we’ll come to the real christmas tree smell in our home, as we have cats.)

then we decided to apply a bit of gold paint to the pinecones to make them sparkle, all fairy-like. these cones were going to be fairy bodies!

gilded

with some wood glue, we attached unfinished wooden beads to the tops, to serve as fairy heads. then i hot-glued (hot glue guns and toddlers do not mix) a golden thread and paper flower to the top of each, so the fairies had flower hats and a string from which to hang.after that, we used one of my most favorite art materials ever — garlic peels! (and a coupla red pearl onion peels, too) these make the perfect ethereal fairy wings when hot-glued to the back of the pinecone.

then we had a big fairy family to share with the ornament swap recipients!

we put each safely into a small empty crayon box and wrapped them with coloring book pictures of fairies that novi has colored.

we wished each fairy well in their new homes in new york, pennsylvania, louisiana, new hampshire, and california… and they’re off in the mail now to these new homes and new adventures! so excited to see which 5 ornaments we receive in return… we can take a peek at the flickr group for the swap to see what others made, too… how fun!

the other day, novi was in the mood for modeling, but our cans of store-bought play-doh were ka-put… so we whipped up a batch of our own play dough from ingredients we had in our kitchen. i consulted my trusty mudworks book to make sure i had the measurements correct for the recipe.

• 4 cups flour
• 1 cup iodized salt
• 1.75 cups warm water
• mix in a bowl, knead 10 minutes, play!

we got to work creating the dough. novi helped every step of the way.

after we kneaded the dough for 10 minutes, it was a ball of potential energy waiting to become kinetic. (science nerdddd!)

anything is possible

and it did! novi had lots of fun with cookie cutters and clay tools all afternoon!

(as earthy and homemade as we try to be, the longest stint in her play was when the little bear clay dude was “talking on his iphone to duck.” sheesh.)

little bear talking on his iphone, which clearly needs an earpiece so he can avoid brain tumors

we decided to bake a few of the cut shapes to make (what else?!) ornaments! (this really was not what we set out to do, but it just sort of happened. again. hey, it’s december…) i brushed each one with mayonnaise prior to baking at 300 for one hour. before putting them in the oven, don’t forget to poke a hole in the ones you intend to hang – straws work well for this.

the next day novi painted the ornaments (and her fingers) with some sparkly acrylic paint.

once dry, we strung them with pretty ribbons and beads, and hung them on our tree. (well, a few were packaged in the mail to be delivered to the trees of friends and family… guess what you’re all getting this year…)