paint cut paste

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!

this fall we got to learn about the michaelmas festival at waldorf school. it happens close to the autumn equinox and marks the beginning of the receding light. the parenting passageway has a great post all about it here, so i’ll leave the describing up to carrie because she does it so well, but in keeping with our woodworking theme this week (check out the giveaway – winners will be drawn tomorrow!) i’d love to share what N made at her school’s michaelmas festival.

on this special day, all of the children wore orange and yellow to school. there were many autumnal activities and presentations. N’s kindergarten class worked on sanding pieces of wood and drilling holes into them as candle holders. N was so proud to show me hers after school that day.she wanted to create her own candle to put into her new holder, so we got out our beeswax.

she had a hard time deciding between red and purple wax (her favorite colors,) but loooved examining the honeycomb shapes on it. eventually, she settled on red, and we cut an 8″ x 8″ piece of wax. N put the wick alongside one edge of it and simply rolled it up with even pressure across.

…as even as she could.

she pushed the candle down into the hole in her candleholder, and was psyched that it fit. (we totally didn’t pre-measure any of this, so i was glad, too.) that night we lit it for dinner, and N was “in looooove” with the candle.

before snuffing out the candle (and cutely whispering “thank you candle for your light”) N said (and sang) her meal blessing song from her kindergarten class:

you may remember my gushing about an artist couple N and i met at a local art festival – they’re rick and heather from earnest efforts natural woodworking, and they make the most amaaaazing art out of trees: beautiful boxes and magical spirit shakers that will make you swooooon!

N checking out the earnest efforts booth at the kings mountain arts fair last month

i’ve scored an interview with the artists and they’re giving away a spirit shaker and a rattle to my readers (one winner for each) so read on to learn more about the art of wood and enter for a chance to win a lovely handmade piece!

my interview with heather of earnest efforts

jen: can you tell us a bit about how and when you came to find the gift of your woodworking craft?

Heather: Earnie Efforts (aka Rick) has been selling his woodworking wares at the Eugene, Oregon Saturday Market (the longest-running outdoor, handcrafted marketplace in the US) since the 1980′s. I, Ellie Efforts (aka Heather), joined the Market in 1994 with my fiber arts. In 1998 we got to know one another, fell in love, and married in 1999. Earnie was an apprentice cabinet maker to his grandfather and continued working in wood to supplement his family’s income. I tell people that I not only married him out of love, but the fact that he had a woodshop – I had wanted to work in wood since I was little.

"Earnie & I in our booth at the Saturday Market"

jen: i notice that each of your pieces clearly has resonance with the spirit of the wood from which it was created. how do your natural materials inform your work?

Heather: If you could crawl inside Earnie’s head and see the world through his eyes, you would know that he doesn’t see driftwood on the beach… he sees boxes. Each piece of wood has it’s own personality, story and destiny. We don’t just see wood or trees; we see life on many levels. I think we forget that wood is still living long after it has fallen to the earth and will continue to live on long after that box we made is discarded and goes back to the earth. This is also why it is so important to us that we maintain the integrity of the wood with a natural beeswax finish. We want you to be able to feel the warmth of the wood, not a plastic coating so often used in “preserving” wood and we want the wood to return to the earth clean.

"Earnie cutting up driftwood on the Coquille River - note the top left piece of wood has been chewed by a beaver"

"River Alder Box - chewed by a beaver"

jen: my daugher and i just love making music with the spirit shakers and rattles we’ve purchased from you! can you tell us a bit about how they are created (like, what’s inside?) and why you call them spirit shakers?

Heather: The spirit shakers are very special to us on many levels. Earnie & I scavengers and hoarders (in a good way) – we don’t waste anything. When he cuts the boxes, the heart of a box becomes another box, a rattle, or a spirit shaker – until all that remains is kindling for our house wood stove. I’m going to leave the spirit making a little bit of a mystery for you, but inside are copper BBs. We call them spirit shakers because we have witnessed that the essence of the living tree continues to live in on in the wood and within us as we touch, make music, and meditate with the wood.

(these are our earnest efforts rattles & spirit shaker - isn't that purple one AMAZING?! no dyes or paints - that's the natural color of the wood!)

jen: how can parents and teachers help inspire children to begin working with wood as an art material?

Heather: Taking children to meet artists at art festivals is a wonderful way to introduce children to art in all of it’s forms. When children can touch, smell, feel and see artwork with an artist they can ask questions and process in a way unavailable in books or online. We meet children at every festival who are interested in woodworking and we encourage their parents to seek out woodworking classes at community colleges or art centers since so many schools are closing their woodshops.

"Earnie cutting a box on our 1953 Boice Crane bandsaw"

jen: is there anything else you’d like to add?

Heather: Take care, be good & kind, and don’t forget to laugh.

giveaway

Oregon-Myrtlewood Spirit Shaker & Maple Baby Rattle/Teether

earnest efforts is so kind to offer one spirit shaker (left in photo above) and one rattle (right in photo above to two paintcutpaste.com readers who enter the drawing. the rattles are beeswax coated and completely safe for babies to chew on. heather says, “these are representational photos – they are not the actual rattle & spirit shakers we are giving away, as we will chose beauties with lovely sound for the winners.” oooooh, and they’re all so lovely!

i will use a random number generator to choose TWO winners (one for each) this thursday evening, october 20, at 9PM pacific/12midnight eastern.

how to enter: comment on this blog entry and let us know your favorite type of tree AND the age(s) of your child(ren) — incase you are a winner, the child’s age is how i will know whether you should receive the baby-safe rattle or the spirit shaker. please be sure your correct email address is associated with your entry so that i can contact you if you’re a winner. (comment link is up there on the left, under the date of this post. i’ve gotta move this at some point…)

two winners were chosen! thanks to all who entered!

please do yourself a favor and check out earnest efforts’ awesome etsy shop to view and purchase more of their wares. (think: holiday shopping!) and be sure to “like” earnest efforts on facebook.

good luck, woodchucks!

happy fall, y’all! (ooo, my quasi-southern roots are showing.) today is the first day of autumn, even though the sf bay area seems to just be getting the summer started. regardless, in my body and spirit, it feels like it’s time to bust out the chet baker and a scarf. to celebrate the season, i gifted my little one with a basket of autumn goodies today…

among the treasures was a strand of mala beads i strung just for her. i’ve always intended to make N one of her own (as she covets mine) and i was inspired by this one i saw on little. lovely. i just used 108 (in the buddhist tradition) blonde wooden beads i had on hand and some stretchy cord.

after they were strung, i looped embroidery thread around my fingers, snipped it at one end, then laid it over the cord. i tied another piece of thread around that to keep it in place. this made for a cute tassel.

i also included two wonderful autumn books in N’s fall basket — i just love both of these seasonal series. one is autumn, an alphabet acrostic by steven schnur and the other is by the light of the harvest moon by harriet ziefert. we have the other seasons from both authors, but somehow didn’t yet have these autumn treasures.

additionally, i found a sweet little melissa & doug wooden kazoo, some pomegranates (N’s favorite fruit – she takes after her momma!) and one a replica of one of my childhood memories… a weather telling owl kinda like this one! when i was a kid, i had a ceramic owl exactly like this on my windowsill. he has little clear salt-sized crystals on his head that change color to tell the weather (or so i thought when i was a kid???) when one of these owls came up randomly on my etsy homepage this summer, my heard did a little flip flop of recognition, and i knew i had to buy it!

another fun thing about today is that we got to use the autumn side of our handmade placemats – ah, refreshing change! i can’t wait to have some fun with fall art projects now…

first day of autumn breakfast

happy autumn to all! did your family do anything special to celebrate autumn’s arrival?

for us, one of the highlights of this time of year in the bay area is the kings mountain arts fair. it is held in woodside, ca, for three days, every labor day weekend, and it is utter and complete MAGIC!

magic in the way that one feels like a tiny wood nymph walking among these giant redwood trees, checking out amazing artisan wares.

the sounds of one artist playing his handmade native american flutes and another playing his drums rings through the woods.

at 2010 fair, playing with flute maker guillermo martinez just before i bought a flute from him

i’m a girl who loves herself some etsy, but this is like a 3D etsy set in the middle of a fairy tale forest… complete with coffee, cookies, and beekeepers with their honey.

a magical land where there is inspirational art at every turn.

i love this mandala mixed media piece (2010)

a fairy tale where woodland creatures surprise you (when trying on expensive leather masks.)

she is, of course, a fox

a fairy tale where kids can literally climb inside of huge tree stumps and create their own crowns from aluminum foil, ribbons, and flowers…

or hide in the shadows of tee pees…

N and i wandered around this festival on saturday and struck up conversations with amazing woodworkers from earnest efforts who carve these gorgeous boxes and spirit shakers.

N was such a sweet shopper that the artist even gifted her with a spirit shaker made from purpleheart wood — a naturally purple wood. “how did he know this was my favorite color??” see? magic!

i would show you a photo of all of the lovely purchases we made, but we made a dent in our holiday shopping at the festival, so i don’t want to spoil the surprises. let’s just say that they are hand-crafted and heARTful gifts!

if you’re ever in the bay area around labor day, i highly recommend checking this out!

where and when are your favorite art fairs?

our hearts go out to all of our east coast friends who have been dealing with hurricane irene and her aftermath. in our pre-cali stomping grounds of richmond, va, much of the beloved city’s beloved residents have been without power for days and huge trees fell and took out homes, cars, playhouses, etc. the photo below is one that my dear friend in richmond took of a fallen tree in her yard.

photo by amy howarth

this is the scene in many of my friends’ yards right now, and the work of cutting up the trunks and branches has begun. while these trees make for fine firewood for the winter, surely some little parts of these hurricane spoils could be repurposed into lovely branch art, yes?

photo by amy howarth

coincidentally i’ve been drooling over some tree-themed pins in the past few months (cannot. curb. pinterest. addiction.) and it seems that, while hurricanes are often tragic and never desirable, mother nature has left behind some art materials in my friends’ yards. so i’ve decided to share some ideas for how to make art out of this bad situation, for those of you who may have a lot of wood lying around. and a saw. (gosh, i want a saw.)

if you click on the images below, they will take you to the source of the image.

building blocks - i SO want these!

wall art (many other branchy ideas at this link, too)

love these gift tags - or stamp any image onto them & glue a magnet to the back!

i'm seriously making these in the fall (i heart mini-eco!)

weaving between the branches

how stylie are these hooks?

great table!

lovely beads

so beautiful above the bed

earthy candle holders

when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

when hurricanes give you fallen trees, make branch art!