rudderless

Last of the Crafting

Recycled wax candles. I made a couple of solstice candles that turned out to be too airy and burned right through in half an hour (too much ice- now I remember you add it to the wax a bit at a time). So we remelted them, added some wicks, and voila- purple candles for our upcoming birthday celebration. Sophie already has plans to make tissue paper lanterns with mason jars. Like these. I love the candle-making. It sums up the whole of the solstice/Hannukah/Christmas tradition with such a simple symbol. We have big plans for next year, including a bonfire if we can manage to get on our land in Maine!

On Christmas Day we crafted some gifts for our beloved birds, taking this great recipe from Zach’s site. They are hanging all over the yard and haven’t seen any action yet, but they are awfully cute to look at. Sophie was thrilled to hear that her homemade dog biscuits were well-received by the family canines. We’ve covered most of the bases, between dogs and birds, apple butter and pesto, brownies and deadly-good chocolate chip cookies. There’s only one thing left to say:

CHEERS to 2010!!! Happy last week of the year.

More Making Stuff

Our first project of the day was this little mummy/zombie/ghost family inspired by, again, Zach Aboard. What would I do without them for crafty ideas? We glued old canvas pieces to some leftover dolls from Casey’s Wood (and some that we’d painted a while back). Sophie made a bride and groom and like all good decorations, they’ve quickly become her favorite toys.

We finished up with our papermaking too and thought we’d put up a few photos to inspire.

I used this tutorial (minus the starch) and used a sponge here and there to sop up particularly wet bits. Sophie was the official sponge squeezer. We found that it’s a fairly forgiving and flexible process- if you mess up transferring a piece to the felt, throw the whole thing back in! When it dries it looks and feels very much like a recycled cardboard container- fun for mounting photos, making gift tags, etc.

The girls went to town playing with the tub of pulp once we were done. They squeezed balls out of it and made tiny sheets of their own filtered goop. It’s a tactile good time. And I’m proud to say with the exception of the thrifted picture frame, everything we used was recycled! Next stop, homemade bubble bath.

Craftiness

We crafted today.
Wet-felted soap in the morning.
Papermaking in the afternoon.
When Sophie has a question like, “How do you make paper?” it’s easy to see the course our day is going to take. We raided the recycling bin and made three blender loads of “puuulp” (as she pronounces it!). One empty picture frame from the thrift store, and some old window screen later, and voila! Paper! Moral of the story- it takes a LOT of recycled paper to make a wee three sheets of new paper. Wow.

The world is truly our oyster with a few craft supplies and an internet full of tutorials, with video, for basically anything handmade. What a different education they will have with the internet at hand.

The felt soaps were inspired by Zach Aboard and were a test run for some we want to make using our friend’s handmade soaps. It was a fun process and the girls loved playing with the “rainbow wool.” I love the one that looks like a rock. It may just join our nature table instead of the vanity.

We carved a few pumpkins yesterday and after struggling with the owl/pig pumpkin, we learned that less is truly more. We may have to make a family of the round eyed ones.

In other news, Sophie took her first pony ride. It was thrilling, as was the butterfly garden and the city of playhouses that reside on The Little Farm, in Miami. It was well worth the trip, though I look forward to a Halloween pumpkin-picking that doesn’t feel like the middle of August.

Making Art

Reading this weeks’ posts on Zach Aboard- really AWESOME crafting all week long . . . has made me a bit antsy to get back in the swing of art-making with Sophie. She makes art every day. Her drawings are in a pile by the scanner, all “signed” with a sun on the back, “so they know it was me who drew this.” I scan them or take photos and will one day compile a big book of them, as saving them all would be an impossible mess of paper. We use them for wrapping paper, photo mats, greeting cards, etc., and the leftovers get recycled as grocery lists.

But today we went beyond our ginormous stack of drawing paper (and btw, this is the time to buy markers and paper and such- all the “other” kids are going back to school and Office Depot is practically giving stuff away). A few weeks ago we made a sandcasting with plaster of paris and while it was fun, I was looking for a way to keep Sophie more involved in the process. Leave it to Jan from the Artful Parent to solve the problem. We simply gathered a bunch of fun stuff from our “tiny box” where we keep beads and shells, and some dried edibles from the pantry, filled a plate with muddy plaster, and went to work. It was fun and mildly addictive. Sophie started drawing in the second one, like wet cement. Like Jan says in her post, the process is what it’s all about, and while the end result is fun, it’s the act of doing that teaches and inspires.

Next time I get off to the mainland, we will get some felting supplies, as I know how much Zoo would love to make Zach’s felted soaps. Painted rocks are also on our list, and homemade stamps. What would we do without the internet to inspire?

Sunflower Painting

We have had great success with our sunflower patch this year. Sophie and I picked a few to play with today. We inked up a leaf or two with the gel inkpad (I suspect you’d have better success with a felt pad, even one “inked” with liquid watercolors). Then we painted the flowers with our watercolors and pressed them- by far our favorite results. We’ve done something similar in the past with tempera. Always a fun result.

Flower Painting

The flowers made me think of this recent post on Zach Aboard, one our favorite boat/kid/blogs. So many good ideas . . .