tutorial :: acorn necklace

A few weeks ago at a school craft fair, I saw people walking past wearing the sweetest necklaces -- acorns with golden caps.  I was trailing after my little son during the fair and so wasn't able to visit the table where students were proudly selling their work, but I was determined to create a few of these baubles at home with my son.

SUPPLIES
-- Acorns and caps
-- Gold paint & a paint brush
-- An electric drill and vise
-- Small screw-eyes
-- PVS glue
-- Yarn or string

 STEP 1 :: Remove caps from acorns, apply gold paint and allow to dry.

STEP 2 :: Glue the painted caps back onto the acorns and allow to dry.

STEP 3 :: Secure your acorns in a vise (please, please, please be careful of your fingers and secure your project in a vise when drilling) and use a very small bit to drill a hole down through the cap and into the acorn.

Note: I use vise jaw liner pads similar to these to protect the items I am securing -- otherwise, a tight vise will damage fragile items.  I have been told that, if you don't own vise jaw liner pads, you can use a washcloth to protect your work when using a vise.

STEP 4 :: Screw the screw-eyes into the drilled holes, cut lengths of cord, ribbon or yarn, and knot to desired length.

Longer pieces of yarn or ribbon will be good for wearing as necklaces, but tied on shorter pieces of cord, these acorns would look pretty on a Christmas tree.  And if you are as fond as I am of shiny gilded objects from nature, you might enjoy clicking HERE to have a look at my tutorial for golden walnut garlands.

tutorial :: acorn dreidels

Originally posted December 9th, 2015

I spotted this tutorial for acorn dreidels on the blog Growing up Creative.  Brilliant!  These are not traditional dreidels because they don't have Hebrew letters on them, but when it's Hanukkah, every sort of spinning top is referred to as a dreidel in my house.

 

SUPPLIES
-- Acorn caps (note: we tried out a few different
    types of acorn caps and liked the way these
    ones spun best, but any sort will work.)

-- A small amount of clay (we used Sculpy, but
    again, there's no need to be fussy -- any sort
    will work.)

-- Wooden matches

STEP 1 :: Roll a small amount of clay into an egg-shape and stuff one end of it inside an acorn cap.

STEP 2 :: Shape the top of the clay into an acorn-ish shape.

 

STEP 3 :: Insert the salt-peter end of your match into the center of the clay and push it down until it hits the inside of the acorn cap...

Like so.

Now your dreidel is done and ready to...

Spin!

And because you can never have too many peg dolls, I thought I'd mention that there are instructions for creating peg doll dreidels in my second book.  For more dreidel fun, you can find edible dreidels here (made them today with my children and they really work). We've also made super fun perler-bead tops according to the instructions HERE at Babble Dabble Do.

Happy (almost) Hanukkah

caterpillar

Brown and furry
Caterpillar in a hurry,
Take your walk
To the shady leaf, or stalk,
Or what not,
Which may be the chosen spot.
No toad spy you,
Hovering bird of prey pass by you;
Spin and die,
To live again a butterfly.

-- Christina Rosetti

Happy first day of spring...

tutorial :: a golden walnut garland

There is a tradition of using nuts and coins as tokens for the Hanukkah game of dreidel, so making a garland of golden walnuts seemed like a beautiful way to decorate our mantelpiece this winter.  If you don't celebrate Hanukkah, golden walnuts would also look nice on a Christmas tree or as a nature-themed ornament for winter solstice.

 

Besides being very pretty, these golden walnuts were easy enough for my five year old son to create, and all the supplies (except the walnuts) were already sitting in my cupboard.

SUPPLIES

-- Walnuts

-- Gold acrylic paint (silver would be pretty, too)

-- Small screw-eye bolts like these

-- A paint brush

-- White (PVA) glue

-- Some ribbon and cord or string

STEP 1 :: Twist a screw-eye bolt into the top of each walnut.  You should not need a drill because the area in the center, at the top of the walnut, is soft.  Don't worry if the screw-eyes feel wobbly -- you can secure them with a drop of glue later, after you have applied paint.

STEP 2 :: Paint your walnut shells gold (or silver, or whatever metalic paint you happen to have stashed in the cupboard) and allow them to dry.

STEP 3 :: If the screw-eyes on your walnuts don't feel secure, add a few drops of white (PVA) glue at the bases of the eyelets, where they are bolted into the nutshells.

STEP 4 :: Once the glue holding any loose eyelets has dried, add pretty ribbons and then tie your walnuts along a length of cord or string at regular intervals.  Alternatively, if you want to hang these on the branches of a Christmas tree, you can tie a small loop of cord through the eyelet of each nut.

 

Amid dark days, I wish for all of us, comfort + joy, peace, hope and light.

tutorial :: autumn leaf lantern

In this beautiful season we have been enjoying leaves by collecting handfuls and ironing them between wax paper.  This inspired me to think about creating some candle lantern decorations for our Thanksgiving table.  I wasn't sure about using real leaves to make the lanterns; I've seen photos of how others have done it, but these things never seem to work as well for me, so I decided to try making lanterns with paper leaves...

Like this.

MATERIALS & SUPPLIES

-- a glass jar (or jars)

-- Mod Podge or diluted white craft glue

-- a wide paint brush

-- scissors, a pencil & a small bit of cardstock

-- Kite paper, also called Window Stars paper,

    which can be purchased here or here. Plain

    tissue paper will work as well.  Note: for this 

    project you will need autumn colors plus white 

    paper for covering the jars.

  

STEP 1 :: Find leaves which you like and, using a pencil, trace around the leaves on a small scrap of card stock.  This will be your template for cutting our your paper leaves.

STEP 2 :: Fold your Kite/Window Star paper (or tissue paper) into thirds or fourths and use your template to trace leaf shapes onto your folded paper.

STEP 3 :: Carefully cut out your leaves along the pencil lines you made from tracing your templates.

STEP 4 :: Cut pieces of white kite/window star/tissue paper to size for covering the jar.

STEP 5 :: Using a wide paint brush, cover the entire jar with Mod Podge or diluted white glue and then wrap the white window star/tissue paper around the jar.  Once the white paper is in place, paint a thin layer of Mod Podge/white glue over it.  The paper will have crinkles, but once the Mod Podge (or glue) dries, it will look very nice (I promise!)

STEP 6 :: While the Mod Podge (or glue) is still wet, place your paper leaves all over the jar.  If the top layer of Mod Podge (or glue) dries too quickly, add more Mod Podge (or glue) and keep sticking on your leaves until you happy with your design.

To help the leaves stick to the jar (and so the whole thing has a nice, shiny finish) go over the paper leaves once again, with another layer of Mod Podge (or glue).

STEP 7 :: Place your decorated jar someplace safe and allow it to dry for several hours.

 STEP 8 :: Light a candle in your jar and enjoy the beautiful glow of autumn leaves.

tutorial :: monarch butterfly peg doll

This past week both of my sons have been at the same summer camp together -- this is my older son's 6th summer and he is now a counselor, while my younger son is participating this week for the first time.  The camp is run by an amazing woman named Robin who has been a science teacher for umpteen years, and each week of camp has a theme: Crazy Chemistry, Phun with Physics, Contraption Camp, Microscopic Monsters, Amazing Animals, California Creatures, etc...  Basically, the curriculum is her own personal mix wacky, weird art, science, education and fun (but man! every time my son came home with an egg immersed in a cup of vinegar for that bouncing rubber egg experiment I'd give her the stink-eye).  She also has an impressive menagerie of animals at home, so every week, no matter the theme, she brings a rotation of sheep, goats and chickens to pet, bunnies and baby chicks to cuddle, ducklings splashing in a wading pool, a turkey or peacock to admire, and occasionally, even a rhea.

Anyhow, last year I gave Robin a copy of one of my books, and since then, we've been casually chatting about doing a peg doll project at the camp.  Finally, we decided that, for the theme of California Creatures, we would do a monarch butterfly peg doll.  So, here we go.

SUPPLIES
-- A blank peg doll base, any size

-- A black Sharpie-marker (I usually paint my
    dolls however, for the purposes of this camp
    project, we decided that a black marker would
    be easier for the younger children to control.
    Feel free to use marker or paint -- whichever
    you prefer.)

-- Thick white acrylic paint

-- Colored pencils - black and red

-- A tiny amount of black felt

-- A millinery flower stamen
    (colored black with a Sharpie)

-- A clip-art image of monarch butterfly wings

 -- PVA or other white craft glue

-- Scissors

STEP 1 :: Whenever I'm doing a project based on specific animal from nature, the first thing I do (or should do, at any rate) is look at photographs.  Going into this project, I knew that monarch butterflies had black bodies, but it somehow escaped my notice that their bodies had white polka dots, too.  It's a good thing I looked at some photos, right? Right.

STEP 2 ::  Using a Sharpie or other black marker, draw a large oval or circle around the "face" of your peg doll.

STEP 3 :: Use your black Sharpie/marker to fill in all the areas on your doll except the face (note: you can use paint on your doll, but for the purposes of this camp project, we used Sharpies).  

Now might also be a good time to paint the white polka dots on the body of your doll. I forgot to do this and so added them later.

STEP 4 ::  Add a face to your doll.  Pencils are easier to control than paint or even markers, and so children will usually have more success drawing a face on their doll when using pencils. You can see in the photo above that I like using pencils to draw faces sometimes, too.

(Oops.  Still forgot to add those white polka dots.  If you haven't already painted the dots, go ahead. Grab that thick white acrylic paint and add them to your doll. Or wait until later.)

STEP 5 ::  If you haven't yet colored your flower stamen with a black Sharpie, go ahead and do this. Then cut a circle of felt, small enough to fit on the back of the head of your peg doll.

Fold your millinery flower stamen in half and place a dab of glue on the felt circle. Put the bend of the stamen into the glue, and then glue the felt circle & stamen to the back of your peg doll's head.

STEP 6 :: Use glue to attach clip-art monarch butterfly wings to the back of your doll.  There are good clip-art wings here and here, or you can use Google to find many others. There are also some good choices for wings at craft shops; I used these die-cut, cardstock butterfly wings which were stashed in my craft cupboard.  Something like this, this or this might work, too.

Another idea would be to draw your own wings and add color with crayon, pencil, markers or paint.

STEP 7 ::  Look!  I finally remembered to paint white polka dots on the body of my butterfly!

This project would make a wonderful addition to lessons about butterfly life cycles, the amazing migration patterns of monarchs and the importance of preserving the habitats of these gorgeous pollinators. You can find lots of information at this website here, and for additional lesson planning, I think this book is particularly lovely. This video on YouTube is also quite wonderful.

As you can see in the photos above, the children at camp today did a lovely job on their butterflies!

olallieberries

For the past month (or more) my little one and I have been reading the book A Fine Dessert (over and over and over).  The book depicts how one particular dessert, blackberry fool, is made by four different families over the course of 300 years. The illustrations are gorgeous, and the story of the dessert is told in few, but very evocative, words by author Emily Jenkins.  All in all, it's a well researched, fascinating book -- and not only that -- it inspired us to want to make blackberry fool. However, blackberries will not be ripe around here until mid-July, so today we headed off on an olallieberry picking expedition.  On our way home, we stopped at the beach.  The path down was lined with wild radish, mustard, hemlock, and yarrow. The wind whipped at our faces, the sky was very blue and there were wild song birds everywhere.

When we got home, we made olallieberry fool.  An olallieberry jam making session is on the schedule for tomorrow.