paint cut paste

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…

we’re one of several wonderful blogs taking part in the tinkerlab creative challenge: create something using egg cartons! we made cute and tiny egg carton baskets.

what a timely challenge this was, too! on saturday when dyeing our easter eggs, i challenged my little N to make whatever she wanted with the egg carton.

first she instructed me to cut it up for her (after realizing it was too tough for the kid scissors. darn.)

N decided to paint each little cup with watercolors. i’m not sure if she had an idea in mind yet, but as she painted, she said they should be small easter baskets.

some were pretty intricate in their design.

she wanted to “sew” a handle to the cartons, but later decided that if she painted strips of the egg carton to staple to the egg cups, that would create a basket!

each basket was filled with a bit of easter grass. N was delighted to find these were the perfect size and shape to hold the wooden watercolor eggs she painted to give to friends.

a couple were even created for our tinkerfriends themselves, as we were lucky enough to have easter brunch with the tinkerlab crew! can you believe our good fortune in being neighbors with these folks?!?

N declared that the unpainted cups would be good drying spots for our dyed eggs…

…which turned out suuuuuper-bright this year, by the way — we used intense ukrainian egg dye!

check out what many other amazing bloggers did with egg cartons:

wishing everyone a colorful spring!

for the past three spring seasons, we have enjoyed watercoloring wooden eggs that we get from casey’s wood products, each time with a different twist.

the first year and second year we posted about this project, we woodburned eggs with the names of N’s friends and gave them as easter or spring gifts. this year, N intends to give an egg to each child in her class this week. in waldorf kindergarten, each student has a visual symbol that identifies their cubby, their coat hook, and each piece of their art work. these symbols have become important to N, so she asked me to woodburn the symbols onto each egg.

after the symbols were on the eggs, N was excited to watercolor them in colors that remind her of each friend.

after they were painted, we sealed them with our homemade wood creme. (see our recipe here.) i have to say that the imaginary play that ensued almost tempted me to keep the whole “kindergarten class egg set” for N to use to act out scenarios amongst her friends. it was fascinating play to witness!

but we’re sticking with the original plan and gifting these little lovely eggs to each child in her class, as well as two larger eggs for her teachers. (and perhaps we’ll create a kindergarten class set another time for home?)

we love this annual egg ritual because these are eggs that stick around year after year. i think i’m going to create a few story eggs for N’s easter basket this week, too.

have you ever wood-burned and/or painted wooden eggs before? what types to do like to create?

spring has sprung, and with the new season comes freshness and color all around our home. from mantel decorating to watercoloring wooden easter eggs and greeting cards to ink painting on beautiful smooth stones, it has been an artful and colorful spring so far around my home. my favorite hue is the inspiration for our spring mantel…

i used elements i saved from N’s nest-themed baby nursery to adorn the mantel, like the distressed iron bird candle holders and this robin’s egg blue nest plate.

isn't this beeswax egg candle beautiful?! it was a birthday gift from N's friend. (click photo to find one on bella luna toys for your home! nope, i don't get paid for that.)

N even made a spring “mantel” of her own on her bedroom dresser, just like she did for valentine’s day and st. patrick’s day.

we’ve been playing with watercolors a lot more since spring began… maybe it’s all of the rain that’s putting us in the mood for them. march showers bring… april showers…?

N's weather paintings on a rainy saturday morning

N is enjoying our annual spring tradition of watercoloring wooden eggs that we get from casey’s wood. i’ve posted about it twice, so i’ll just mention it here with the link to say, yep, we’re doing that again. they make for sweet spring gifts for little friends.

all our eggs in one basket

N has also been playing with liquid watercolors in the afternoons… mostly doing some wet-on-wet watercoloring and making sticker resist greeting cards.

i’ve been dabbling a bit in my acrylic inks, taking inspiration from geninne and inking some smooth stones we found on the beach. (i’m looooving the pale green stones!)

i’ve also been having lots of fun beading, needle-felting, and doing some light sewing… nothing to write home blogs about really. just the usual that i’ve blogged on before, but loving the rebirth of creativity i’m feeling this spring!

and i love that we got to bring out the spring placemats we made  – snaaaaails and flowers!

in the photo above you see my  sunday breakfast i saw on dr. oz – a 5 minute microwave muffin. it totally tasted like sand until i added the butter and honey, but gosh, i felt healthy! click the link to try it out. (i may add a little cocoa powder to mine next time.)

what sort of colorful inspiration is springing up around your home? 

happy spring equinox! lately we’ve been on a beading binge over here. in the late 90s, i was an avid beader. i sold some of my jewelry in a small shop in brooklyn at the time. ever since then, i just bead on occasion for random gifts, as i still have lots of supplies on hand (and rarely need to buy new ones; luckily, little beads go a long way!)

i decided to pull out the beading boxes again last week and make a few spring things for myself and as gifts. N got in on the action, too. first, i wanted to try my hand at braiding scrap fabric as a base for a wooden bead necklace, sort of like one i saw on pinterest (the braided part, at least) from the cakies blog (which is so awesome, by the way!) i started by tearing up some old fabric scraps.

once braided, i strung some large wooden beads onto them and sewed them closed using my sewing machine (though you could easily tie them or  hand stitch.)

the wood was fun to work with, so i whipped up a few wooden bead bracelets on elastic cord embellished with embroidery floss, too.

and N wanted to create a wooden necklace of her own using beads a friend gave to her and some indigo hemp.

i LOVE how hers turned out (and want to wear it myself, though it won’t fit over my neck.)

i had fun with some old seed beads, gemstones, and charms, as well. they were strung into some sweet bracelets, too.

N created a warm colors/cool colors bracelet for herself while i made these.

it was fun to bead with my daughter, side by side, and i love that she takes such joy in what has always been one of my go-to handwork activities. aaand, they make for cute gifts for friends!

my daughter is becoming a gnome lover. she’s a girl who gets a lot of satisfaction out of making her own toys - what a great way to boost self-esteem in little ones. this project was perfect for her: creating her own wooden and wool gnome toys!

i recently blogged about how N was learning to sew gnomes with felt. the newer variety is a bit different, in that she is sewing wool hats and gluing them to watercolored wooden peg bodies. i wrote a guest post on this earlier in the week over on kiwi crate, so check it out to see the step by step of how these little cuties came to be!

N has been playing with hers quite a bit, and has gifted some to friends, too. and shhhh, for her birthday tomorrow, she’ll be receiving more wooden peg dolls and wool felt, so i’m sure more will soon be born!

my husband and i are in the process of creating teeny handmade tokens to serve as prizes in the game room at N’s waldorf school holiday faire in a couple of weeks.

creating handmade treats for little ones is right up my alley. because i have a bunch of random materials overflowing out of our art cabinet, i decided to donate not only our time, but also the materials to create some prizes.

mostly, we created pom pom/felted wool acorns, painted and wax-sealed wooden toys of all shapes, and some mini-pinecone fairies. we had a great time this weekend, as a family, making all sorts of fun little things together from the mish-mash of stuff that was bursting (avalanche style) out of our art stash.

i wasn’t sure if these little tokens would be “big enough” prizes until N confirmed that she’d LOVE to win a wooden heart and a wooden apple if she played a game. and she LOVED these weird looking gnomes i designed from the wooden shape that’s supposed to be a carrot. whew! kids are easy to please…

N even helped to paint a few gnomes

one of my favorite adaptations of the weekend was how we morphed our pinecone fairies from 2009 — this time instead of garlic peel wings (one of my fav art materials!) we used these wooden mustache shapes from our collection of odd wooden doodads for more durable wings. they turned out to be pretty cute with their acorn hats.

i love how each of us got in on the action and created these teeny treats for the kids at school. i spent much of the weekend creating holiday gifts for friends and family, too. i’m launching into total handmade holiday elf mode over here, and it’s not even thanksgiving!