paint cut paste

as you know from our recent post, we spent some time along the lovely beaches of the pacific over memorial day weekend, and gleaned a few treasures in our beachcombing. N has always been obsessed with holding and running around with sticks (safe, huh?) so she’s a natural at finding nice driftwood, bringing it to me, and saying, “we have to make art out of this!!!” so what’s a mom to do? make art!

we sorted our findings in the backyard and were inspired by the driftwood, (and of course by the lovely stones we used in the rock picture holder post! i’m still obsessed with making those!)

N decided that she wanted to paint some of the driftwood like we did last summer, ginette lapalme style and create a mobile from them. first, we got some exposure to the power drill, to drill holes across the top of a long piece of driftwood and in the ends of five short pieces. N marked the stick first to show where she wanted the holes to go.

then we were ready to paint, al fresco!

the two of us had so much fun striping these wooden sticks.

as we painted, we chatted about the wood and “what colors it was telling us that it wanted to have on it.” one of N’s pieces wanted light pink at the bottom (which she learned to mix for herself) because it looked like a ballerina’s slipper.

we let the sticks dry in the sun – so very pretty! (i’m a sucker for rainbows and natural materials.)

after the sticks were dry, we laid out a plan for the mobile. the next morning, a pj-clad N helped to thread the cord through the sticks, a rock, and a couple shells.

i used knots to secure everything in place.

the whole family is smitten with the outcome of this project…

so much so that we chose to hang it in our tall stairwell so we can enjoy seeing it from all angles, watching it twirl around.

i’m in love with the shamanic look of this piece – now i feel like we need to make more of them as gifts and for our backyard!

this weekend we took a long drive down highway 1 along the pacific coast, stopping at various beaches along the way. days like that remind me of how lucky i am to live here in northern california, and on this beautiful earth in general. nature offers some of the most amazing art inspiration!

one of the beaches we visited had amazingly colorful stones all over it. we spent hours wandering this beach, enjoying running from the chilly waves and collecting stones.

when we layed out our bounty at home, it was a rainbow of gorgeous rocks.

i can’t wait to ink some of these rocks – and i also want to learn to crochet around them like i have oogled over on one of my favorite blogs, resurrection fern. but today we opted for a simple rock craft – picture holders. easy peasy. all you need is floral wire (or any other type of wire, but i prefer this wrapped kind in dark brown) and a pair of pliers.

wrap the rock with the wire, then point the wire upwards.

now make a curlycue at the tip with the pliers – you can make a fancy spiral or just a little curl like i did.

wedge a photograph or a little piece of art in between the top spiral, and there you have a rock picture holder.

it’s sort of addictive once you start making these…

i think a collection of old fashioned hipstamatic/instagram/pictureshow images would look fabulous displayed in these. (yes, i’m obsessed with iphone photo apps.) but N’s tiny watercolor paintings make for an awesome exhibit.

this quick craft was born out of our need for more magnets to hold up the art on our fridge! bonus: a set of these makes for a lovely, personalized mother’s day, father’s day, or teacher appreciation gift!

N found some lovely, flat, lightweight rocks (sandstone) at the beach a few weeks ago which seemed like the perfect natural material for lovely magnets.

we got out our ink pads and N made some colorful thumbprints on the rocks.

i doodled a few different critters on the thumbprint with a sharpie after N ran off to play elsewhere, though in retrospect (yikes!) i really should have let her capable hands do this! momma couldn’t resist – i love fingerprint art.

(psst - my amazingly talented fiber artist friend, kenden, wove this cloth for me on her loom)

we used elmer’s household cement to secure a little magnet to the backs of the rocks.

now our fridge is all kinds of fingerprint fancy!

oh, are you wondering about what the frog magnet says? it’s to remind us of thich nhat hanh’s concept of froglessness.

sure, it’s not innovative, but i just had to include our day at the beach this weekend, making art and fun out of the natural surroundings…

there were sand drawings…

no one is a stranger to the magic of a sandcastle…uh, or a sand alligator. N and her daddy loved making this creature together!

N took her time creating and adding to this rock/driftwood/sand man.

i collected shells, sea glass, and flat, smooth stones for painting – ever the beachcomber, i am. best art supply store there is!

there was plenty of kite-flying in the mix, as well.

N collected driftwood on the walk back up to the car.

"mommy, i think i'm going to build a house out of this when we get home."

let’s see what else transpires from our day at the beach…

all of our days are artful… but not every day includes an “art activity” to share with you, per se. here are some of the creative and lovely things that have been happening around our house thus far this week that are worth a visual share…

chalk drawing al fresco

mushroom spotting

portraits in frames

momma's inked rocks in process

impromptu pen drawing on the grocery list paper

gathering flowers & herbs in the backyard (with matching pedis a la momma)

coloring mandalas

"hey mommy, i made a bear out of rocks!"

chillin' with a ladybug

flowers & the potential of unpainted wood

take time to notice the small things & happy creating!