paint cut paste

ever since i saw this brilliant post on wise craft two years ago, i’ve totally wanted to make our own everyday placemats! i finally got around to it last week!

i don’t know about your home, but we really benefit from having some sort of wipeable, plastic placemat on the table at mealtimes. we use cloth napkins everyday and when we entertain, we use cloth placemats, but for everyday use, cloth placemats just don’t cut it. while i realize i could achieve this look (and you could too) by laminating beautiful cardstock or paper art work, i wanted the heft of cloth layers for our placemats.

where did those pretty patterns up there come from? well lately, i’ve been OB-sessed with spoonflower, so i could not resist (though i tried) picking a few patterns from their web site to use for ours. the visuals are important to me, especially for something we’ll see so often and will likely be burned in N’s brain if we use them for years of her childhood. because we are very seasonally oriented in our home (from our seasonal altar to food to centerpieces to decor,) i decided to choose one fabric for each season. i made eight placemats total: four with spring on one side, summer on the other. then four with autumn on one side, winter on the other. i got the spring fabric from etsy (i was seeking a hip snail print, as snails are a huge sign of spring here in our backyard, as they SWARM it all season long) and the other three seasons’ fabric was carefully chosen from spoonflower to also be personal to our family in some way.

when the fabric arrived, i was thrilled to begin! (a project with beautiful fabric that requires NO SEWING? this is my kinda creation!)

(i didn't need the pins. they just made the pic cute & were in the box with my fabric scissors.)

i followed the instructions on wisecraft: i began by cutting four 11″ x 17″ rectangles out of each fabric. (i freaked about the measurements here being exact and lining up because i didn’t read ahead in the instructions, but you don’t need to freak at this part. there is a time later when you’ll trim them down again.) i must have looked stressed during this part of the project because N kept rubbing my back and saying, “i like the way you’re concentrating here. good, good, you got it, good.”

then i ironed each rectangle of fabric. (first time i’ve used my ironing board in N’s life – she had to ask what it was. sad, right? uh, i like to tell myself that we mostly wear comfy knitwear and it’s not needed.) after they were wrinkle-free, i used thermoweb heatnbond lite to adhere spring to summer and fall to winter. wisecraft gives a thorough explanation of this process on her blog here.

after they were bonded, right sides of fabric facing out, i trimmed them down to 10.25″ by 16.25″ each. (aaaah, all lined up!)

next i did a little research on the laminating process. i found a teacher supply store locally that only charged 65 cents to laminate something that is 11×17 – score… or so i thought. BUT when we visited the store, i learned that the laminate was very thin and the placemats would still be flimsy like the cloth. so, i decided to go to fedex/kinkos (as wisecraft recommended – no need to try to reinvent the wheel to save a few bucks here.) i found it very user-friendly.

even though each placemat cost $4.50 to laminate at that size, we went this route considering the fabric investment i’d already made. they offer a thick plastic sleeve to put the cloth into. after it’s centered in the sleeve, just run it through the laminating machine that seals it together with heat. i feel like they’ll hold up for years!

about an hour after we laminated them, they were on our table and dinner was served — summer style!

even though this was a mom-made project, i have to say that N was with me every step of the way and takes immense pride in telling everyone “can you believe that WE made these placemats ourselves?!”

our beach vacay has been full of fun… and art! today we tried sandcasting on the beach, which is something i’ve been wanting to do with N for a while now!

i remember doing this when i was in elementary school, but in a sandbox. in retrospect, i now see that my teacher that year was obsessed with the many uses of plaster of paris – fun year! my copy of Ecoart!: Earth-Friendly Art and Craft Experiences for 3-To 9-Year-Olds brought this sandcasting memory back to the forefront a while back, and we finally got around to doing it. we (now) west coasters are all the way on our home coast in the east right now, and since i wasn’t about to fly with the extra poundage that plaster of paris would create, my sister was kind enough to bring some down to our family vacation (via car.) today we toted it to the beach along with an old bucket, stick, and cups for measuring. we began by digging little holes. N discovered that twisting her fist into the sand created the perfect little cups for the small paperweights we were intending to make. she and her teenage cousin, G, created several of these pockets in the sand.

then N helped to mix the plaster of paris concoction. then she and her cousin chose shells to line the bottoms of the holes (which would become the decorative tops of our paperweights.)

i poured the plaster into the holes, hoping it would level off on top to be somewhat flat and smooth.

then we waited about 20 minutes for the plaster to harden. (it didn’t take that long, but we became engrossed in the task of digging a huge hole – not for plaster.)

meanwhile, our creations were becoming solid…

N came back to check on the plaster and for the big reveal.

score – beach treasures preserved!

the minimal clean up was great – we used old buckets and sticks that could remain plastered. hands rinsed easily in ocean.

the picture below was taken fresh off the beach, but after brushing these off with an old toothbrush, i think they’ll reveal a bit more shell detail. of course, N wants to keep her purple shell one for herself, and we will gift the others to family members who are with us on the trip. i know i’ll be nostalgic for our family beach vacation when looking at these next week, when we’re back to the grind — they make such sweet paperweights or tokens for a summer nature table!

it is a 4th of july weekend tradition in my family to make homemade ice cream. this dates back to my early memories of a huge tub of ice and rock salt and a crank on our back porch as a kid. these days, it’s a lot easier!

not only do we now have fancy ice cream makers for such endeavors (like how we made our lavender honey ice cream creation last summer – yum!) but these days there are ice cream makers that kids can operate. yep, the ice cream ball. have you seen this thing?

it rocks! all we had to do was put ice and rock salt (or sea salt, which we used) into the outside chamber and ice cream ingredients into the inside chamber, play, and eat! N chose vanilla for her ice cream flavor (she’s a simple lady) so we gathered our ingredients.

N stirred everything together in a bowl to pour into the ball. (hers is purple, of course.)

then we ventured out into the yard to roll the ball back and forth to each other for 20 minutes. this was a fun time of singing “big rock candy mountain” and “red red robin.”

we also played “i’m going on a picnic and i’m going to bring…” while going through the alphabet. i still remember the sequence: apple, blueberry, cat, dalmation, egg, flower, gummy bear, horse, ice cream (of course!), janice (from electric mayhem), kite, love, mom, newt, octopus… etc. you get the picture. once we had the ABCs all loaded up for our picnic, we went inside to see if the ice cream had solidified, and it had!

the edges were quite frozen, whereas some of the ice cream in the center of the chamber was still a little soft-serve-ish. didn’t matter. we served up some into our bowls, and also put some in tuperware to bring over to our neighbor, who was curiously watching us roll the ball back and forth.

deeeelish! happy 4th of july to all and happy two year blog-iversary to paintcutpaste.com yesterday! (this treat was even better than having a gluten-free birthday cake!)

i’ve been wanting to try this one for a while now… and we finally did! remember that plethora of stones we got from the beach recently? well, we chose a few…

and baked them and colored on them with crayons. visit our guest post all about it over on moms by heart.

happy summer solstice! the solstices are special to me, as my birthday is the winter solstice and our wedding anniversary is the summer solstice (on the years when solstices fall on the 21st.) so this (legitimately HOT day in the bay area – whoo hoo!) first day of summer was a day of celebration and fun for us!

during N’s “summer camp” in the morning, my husband and i had a breakfast anniversary date to celebrate our eight years of marriage. (as a gift, i gave him some redstone meadery juniper honey wine from boulder for old times’ sake – we lived there for 3 years, during which time we got married, and so enjoyed this mead!)

table 8 for 8 years! (that card is in the shape of INFINITY by the way

after camp was over, we hit the kiddie pool in the backyard! i’ve been obsessed with making lemon juice ice cubes that i saw on one of my favorite blogs, salt & chocolate. what a simple idea and yummy for summertime water, lemonade, tea, and arnold palmers. i bought a bag of organic lemons (i’m not one of the lucky ones with fruit trees in my yard) and N helped me wash them…

then with lemon squeezing…

i froze them in ice cube trays for later… (note: this bag yielded 2 cups of lemon juice, and i added about a cup of filtered water to it to fill 2 ice cube trays.)

…which made me think about making sun tea! what a perfect day to let the strong summer sunshine do its thang brewing some delicious tea!

as all of this was going on, N grabbed a paintbrush from her play shed and randomly began water-painting on her little (freecycled) picnic table and on some driftwood.

N also made “nature soup”

we noticed that the mama bird who made a (pimped) nest in our play shed had three more babies, and she was teaching them to fly today, which we got to witness firsthand! here’s a baby bird standing on the ledge of our shed shelf… which he did for HOURS while watching mama flit around inside the shed.

look at that little cutie!

we had a beautiful day together, soaking in the rays — and, of course, blocking the harmful ones with mad amounts of sunblock. we finished the day with a yummy glass of lemon-iced sun tea.

and an adorable homemade (and sounded out) half-birthday sign from my favorite little artist.

happy summer! happy soltice! happy half-birthday to me! and happy 8 year anniversary to my special sweetheart!

in the words of N’s favorite muppet show special guest star, alice cooper, “school’s out for summer!” that means that N is graduating from preschool, and the class presented a really sweet gift to the teacher/school yard on the last day of class — handprint garden flags! (can you tell which parent coordinated this creation? um yeah, i’m a little obsessed with flags/garland over here.)

i cut and sewed a cord pocket onto these little linen fabric squares the same way i’ve done for the food flags and leaf print garden flags, of course. then i gave one out to each family in the class to take home with simple instructions to use fabric paint for handprints and their child’s name (which have been removed from photos for privacy) and to bling out their flag with whatever else they’d like. we got busy handprinting N’s.

in a few weeks, i received a rainbow of lovely handprints from each kid in class.

we worked on stringing them together on a white rope.

then the flags were ready to present to the most amazing preschool teachers ever!

i just love the details on each one – showing such personality! (wish you could see all of the names – they were so cute – but i want to protect the privacy of the kids in class.)

here’s to all the wonderful teachers out there in the world! happy summer!

today i have the absolute pleasure and honor of guest blogging on one of my super-duper-favorite blogs, mamaroots! chris willow, of mamaroots, is a talented toymaker extraordinaire and such an inspiring writer, healer, and momma!

chris makes these beautiful wooden toys, which bless our home in just about every nook and cranny… so what on earth was i thinking when the art material i shared on her blog was WOOD when i know nearly nothing about woodworking!?? haha! perhaps it is the inspiration of chris and our lovely pacific coastline with its magical driftwood…

but i was called to post this simple driftwood mobile we created as a family. it’s a paired-down, less-is-more version of the beach treasure mobile we shared here last week. don’t you love how mobiles are all about moving in the wind and all about balance? please hop over to mamaroots to check out my guest post over there today.

so easy, so lovely. so perfect for father’s day.

*wink wink*