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…

…i believe you can get me through the nii-iiight… you guessed it! we created a dreamcatcher, and surprise: it’s WAY easier than i thought it would be! i wrote a guest post about our dreamweaving experience on allstate’s good hands community, so be sure to click over to check it out.

the weaving always looked kinda complex to me, but it so isn’t.

to clarify, it isn’t simple enough for my 4 year old to do herself, but she certainly assisted in choosing the branch from the yard to use for the loop…

and in choosing the colors and materials that held the energy she wanted in her bedroom.

check out our guest post on the good hands community to see a how-to and to find out why a dreamcatcher can be an empowering art idea for children.

sweet dreams!

does your little one gather thousands of leaves and twigs every time s/he’s outside? mine does! from nature walks to playgrounds to the preschool sandbox, N is constantly in search of treasures. when i saw the framework for this idea on moment to moment, i thought it would make a sweet storage space for seasonal findings.

i like how on moment to moment, the kids made beaded strands and various things to add to their fairy loom (which we’ll likely do later,) but mostly i wanted to make one where we could store natural objects… a fairy loom for all seasons! first, we needed a sturdy stick in the shape of the letter Y. last week we went on a nature walk with gwee, and hunted for said stick with no luck. we did find plenty of leaves and things, so N saved the things she gathered in anticipation of making a fairy loom.

over the weekend on a hike with her daddy, N found the perfect Y shaped stick for her loom. it was a bit bigger than i’d imagined it being (i was envisioning a 1-2 foot stick) but it turned out to be perfect.

N and i chose some variegated ribbon to thread the loom. you could use any ribbon, yarn, twine, or string you like. i wound the ribbon around the forked part of the stick. in hindsight, i should have created a loop around each side of the branch on each pass to make the weaving tighter. eh, next time.

weaving ribbon in a figure 8 pattern

we wove the found objects into it… leaves, feathers, pine needles with tiny pinecones on them, lavender, flowers, etc. N said “over, under, over, under…” as she wove.

when it was finished, N was so enthralled with it. she asked with wonder, “do you think a fairy would land on this?” (i think she’s hoping for tinkerbell to visit her, like in the new tink movie that just came out.)

we brought it into the house and put it in the corner of our den, kind of near the seasonal altar (though not in this photo.) it seems like a good place to store some of the little beautiful treats that N brings inside for us, and perhaps we’ll string some beads and shells to add to it, as well. i’m excited for the leaves to turn reds and oranges and yellows so we can add them to the loom — the color change happens later (and less vibrantly than i’m used to) in the bay area.

the loom can be cleaned out and redesigned with each season. i also think smaller (and bigger!) ones would be pretty hung from trees, hung on porches, or placed around the yard…  oooo…

i recently chanced upon this inspirational photo of these lovely sticks by an artist named ginette lapalme.

ginette's sticks

we had some sticks and driftwood hanging around our backyard, just waiting to become art materials… and i’d been thinking on it for a few days. i’m also reading a book on the shamanic tradition of holding council, which involves a talking piece – usually a stick. i’ve been dreaming about finding and embellishing a talking stick for my family and also for my work with clients. then blamo! – this picture finds me. the internet is so cool like that – providing serendipitous encounters and answers. anyway, the fire was lit under me, so i showed N the photo to share the fire, and we gathered up our things: sticks, acrylics, brushes, palette, water jar, rag.

perhaps sticks we had won’t necessarily become future talking sticks, but i set out without that intention – just wanting to enjoy art for art’s sake and the fun of painting whimsical stripes and such on a natural canvas. while i worked on a big stick, N had so much fun with the smaller ones.

she talked all the while about how she’d never done this before, and how she loves all of the new art ideas i come up with for us to do — how sweet to hear! (incidentally, she told me i am the best artist in alaska… which was flattering and all, but we’ve never even been there. ) it was a playful art-making session.

N's "ocean sparkle" stick

when working with natural materials, i like to (and this may get too woo-woo for some of you, but bear with me) have a dialog with the stick, rock, shell, etc. about what it would like to become. i feel like nature’s form really can dictate the lines, shapes, and colors, if we mindfully engage with it, observe, listen, and trust our instincts about the artistic choice we are making. i did this as i worked on painting my sticks, and i introduced this concept to N as we painted. children are such absolute naturals when it comes to creating such a dialog, storyline, conversation – they are not self-conscious and are so genuinely connected to nature, so it comes easily. as adults, we have often lost that ability, and work to reclaim it.

the collection (sticks and stones)

besides having tons of fun together, the visual results were magical.

my "heart chakra" driftwood

the most magical aftermath of all…

our artist hands