How to Dye Easter Eggs Naturally

Here is my blog post from last year about how to dye Easter eggs naturally:

This was a lot more fun than buying dye and making the eggs that way, plus the colors were amazing and much lovelier.

The naturally dyed Easter eggs we made turned out beautiful! I love the colors and the patterns the natural dyes imprinted on the eggs. I was able to compare our dyes with the girls' grandma's store bought dyes and I have to say that the natural dyes are well worth the time, as the colors are so much more vibrant, realistic, and healthy! Here is what I used to achieve the dyes:

Painting away the Rain

 

 

 We are all big fans of face paint.  Shown above is marina with a flower, drawn by me, and Stella, with "wild cat" paint, applied by, guess who?  Her!  Much to my surprise.  

This is the face painting book we have: http://www.amazon.com/Face-Painting-Inc-Klutz/dp/0932592856

Making Apple Dolls & Author Elisa Kleven

Perusing the  library one day we found a lovely book, The Apple Doll by Elisa Kleven.  The story is about a young girl who finds a beautiful apple on her favorite apple tree and pretends that the apple is her doll.  When the girl's sister informs her that her doll is not looking too fresh anymore, she asks her mom if she can dry the apple.  This idea reminds the girl's mother that her grandma used to make her a dried apple doll when she was small.  She then learns how to make her beautiful apple into a longer lasting doll, with the instructions included at the end of the book.  The story is wonderful and I love the illustrations!  Visit Elisa's website http://www.elisakleven.com/

Here is the book:

I decided that this would  be a fun fall craft to do with my girls.  So we picked out a couple of big, round granny smith apples at the local grocery story, peeled and carved them, and let them soak in lemon juice and salt water for 30 minutes.  After that we placed them on a cookie tray and cooked them on "keep warm" - Bake in the oven for several days, turning off the heat at night.  It was a quick and easy way to dehydrate them.

apples, pre-dehydrating

Using pipe cleaners I made bodies for the apple heads and we pulled out some little doll clothes to dress them in.  To attach the pipe cleaner to the apple, make a hole through the center of the apple (I used a chop stick) and push the pipe cleaner through the hole.  On the second doll I made I used an old wooden knitting needle to make the body of the doll, which gave it more support than the pipe cleaners.  I then hot glued the pipe cleaners to the needle.

Stella even liked the taste of the apple doll's nose.  I used a hot glue gun to glue to doll's hair (made from wool) to its head.  You can then insert beads in the eye sockets (which we have to do still) and lightly color the dolls cheeks with a pink pen.

Here is the doll from the book, The Apple Doll:

  picture courtesy Seven Impossible Things

Buy the Book: The Apple Doll by Elisa Kleven
Some other books by (and/or illustrated by) Elisa Kleven:

• Wish: Wishing Traditions Around the World by Roseanne Thong (Chronicle, 2008)
• The Apple Doll (FSG, 2007)
• Sun Bread (Dutton, 2001)
• The Lion and the Little Red Bird (Dutton, 1992)
• The Paper Princess (Dutton, 1994)
• Ernst (Dutton, ‘89; reissued by Tricycle Press, ‘02)
• The Puddle Pail (Dutton, ‘97; reissued by Tricycle Press, ‘07)
• Abuela by Arthur Dorros (Dutton, ‘91)
• De Colores and Other Latin American Folk Songs for Children by José Luis Orozco (Dutton, 1994)
• Our Big Home by Linda Glaser (Millbrook, 2000)
• A Carousel Tale (Tricycle, 2009)

An Interview: Elisa Kleven by Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

my girls with their apple dolls, L: Stella, R: Marina

Learn how to make another kind of apple doll:
http://www.appledolls.org/

Make Your Own Halloween Decorations

A craft for kids: Some Halloween Decorating Ideas

Marina with one of her pumpkins 

Photos and crafts courtesy Vicky Burt (grandma)

Magazines: Save those costume magazines you get in the mail and your kids can use then to make cut-outs.  With the cut-outs you can paste them on construction paper and make a hanging decoration or paste several pictures on a piece of paper. See pictures below.

Hanging Spooky: Use construction paper to make black cats, witches, bats, pumpkins, spiders...  anything spooky!  Attach string and hang in rooms or windows.  If you have young children and they cannot cutout their own shapes, cut them out for them and let them draw on them with pens. See pictures below.

Spiderweb: Make your own spiderweb with cotton stuffing from a craft shop.  And here's another idea---
This Vintage Chica: Make a real spiderweb

Thrift Store: Go to your local thrift store and look around, you'll likely find lots of interesting ideas!

Do you have any ideas?  Please comment and let me know what you and your family do!
Here are some links:
http://www.dltk-holidays.com/Halloween/index.html
http://familyfun.go.com/halloween/halloween-crafts/  
http://www.makingfriends.com/halloween.htm
http://www.apples4theteacher.com/holidays/halloween/ 
http://www.craftjr.com/ 

Pictures from Marina and Stella's Art Day:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Photos courtesy Vicky Burt

People Emerging: Marina's Art

 Above: "Mommy this is for you, it's you and me holding hands.  You have the short dress, I have the long one.  And you are wearing a white shirt." ---Marina, 4 1/2 yo

It has been really exciting seeing people, animals, and plants emerging from Marina's (4 years old) artwork.  Some of my favorite of her pictures are little sketches she does with a pen on sticky notes.  I really love how personal her pictures are.  I hope she always keeps her unique perspective!  Below are some more pictures:

Above: Sunshine, butterflies, and ?

When I wouldn't buy her a new nutcracker, she decided to make her own, see above.

Cut-outs, a favorite.  She's great with scissors.  

Making Food Critters or Fruit and Vegetable Sculptures

A great kid or adult summertime craft . . .

Miss Flower Fairy seems to have a very distinct personality, wouldn't you say? A bit fun loving and zany. A touch of crazy too perhaps!
(scroll down for more pictures of the food sculptures, including the butterfly)

Some tips for Newbies to food sculpture art

1. The best way to learn is to just make one!

2. Have rounded toothpicks and super glue on hand. Really: you will definitely need the toothpicks.

3. You may need to cut the toothpicks to size depending on the size of the food you are pinning together.

4. Super glue is great for gluing petals on fairies or connecting other delicate (and light weight) materials together.

5. Have a very small knife on hand for carving. I used a small knife that folded out of a pocket knife. Especially important for small features like nose, eyes, ears, etc. Which brings us to:

6. Have the right tools on hand: if you will need to be cutting, have scissors. Pretty straight forward.

7. Have fun shopping & make a list: Come up with a plan of what you are making, bring a picture along and a list of what foods might work best for various parts of your sculpture. But be open to discovering an even better idea.

8. Keep it Fun! A "mistake" may be a stroke of genius in the end. Who knows? Things always happen for a reason. Trust the process!

9. If your kid(s) will be helping you, be sure to choose a project that is easy to accomplish with their help. There are lots of simple animals you can make, or ones that you can simplify to suit kids ages and skill levels. Marina (4) was able to make a butterfly will very little help. I cut all the pieces for her and she assembled them!

10. Pick fruits and vegetables that are odd shapes, if they suit your needs. We found a yam that looked just like a duck. I cut off its "bill" and added a carrot nose that made it look more like a horse. Then I shaved off its hind end and shaped it into a horse's bum.

11. If you need a part to be strong, choose a strong food for it. I know, duh. But really important: for the horses legs I need a strong vegetable. Which ruled out most fruits anyway. I chose carrots. Perfect!


Flower Fairy Rides a Unicorn Series:

notice Miss Flower Fairy's cabbage wings and the unicorn's fennel tail.

The unicorn has a cinnamon stick horn. Miss Flower Fairy has flower petals "picked" to her carrot feet.

Black eyed peas make great eyes, for many critters!

A mildly funny shaped carrot made a great "in motion" leg

Cabbage Butterfly
The wing decorations were made using cabbage and slices of lemon and yams, and the skin of grapefruit and lemon. The body of the butterfly is a zucchini. The antennas are fennel stems, which are very flexible and were easily pinned on with toothpicks.

The butterfly artist herself!

Summertime Kids Crafts: Painting Outside with Your Kids

We used finger paints outside on the two sided easel. Stella (1 1/2 years old) had one side to paint on and Marina (4 years old) had the other side. When the weather is nice and warm it is fun to set up some messy paints outside and let the kids experiment with them. After they finished their pictures on the easel, they both began to paint their bodies. Bath time!

Above: picture number 1

Above: picture number 2

Kids Craft ~ Magazine Cutout Cards

Magazines + Glue + Construction Paper = Fun cards

When your kid(s) are big enough to cut out pictures from magazines you can have lots of fun seeing what they put together, and how cards differ depending on who they are making it for. The above card was made by Marina (4 yo). She cut out pictures from what looks like National Geographic magazine and pasted them on to the construction paper color red for father's day. She chose a turtle, a rainbow, two bear pictures, flowers and a butterfly. Try making your own magazine cutout cards and see what your child picks. . .

Kid's Art Craft: Painting Rocks for the Garden ~ Some ideas for making a mini garden for & with your kids

It is great to set up a craft for your kids that you can actually use and enjoy later. Painting rocks is one of those special crafts. We used acrylic craft paint and spray it with a shellac to preserve the paint, otherwise it will wash off in the rain. The stones make nice garden ornaments and great gifts for family and friends.

Here are some tips and ideas for painting your rocks:

• use a separate paint brush for each color
• paint garden insects, ladybugs, birds, butterflies, faeries on your rocks
• paint each rock a different color and make a rainbow
• try painting words on rocks
• make a mandala with different color rocks and patterns radiating out into a circle
• place your painted rocks in your kids' very own mini garden with kid friendly plants, vegetables, and flowers
• paint different vegetables on your rocks then mark the rows of your vegetable garden with them
• paint your kids' names on the rocks
• paint different weather scenes on your rocks: sun, rain, wind, snow, lightening . . .
  

Painting outside, Marina

Marina painted beach wood, sea shells, and various sized rocks

Grandma's (Nanny's) Magic Garden Marker, by Candice

Butterfly, by Marina

Star in the night sky, by Marina

butterfly

Making a Child's Tepee for the Garden, Ideas from Sharon Lovejoy

I needed to find a book to read while I nursed baby Stella, so I grabbed a few off my shelf and sat down to have a look. I opened "Sunflower Houses" and bam!! It was amazing! How could I have never looked at this book before? And where has it been? Did it magically appear? Has it been incubating on my book shelf, waiting for the right time to show itself to me?

The book is written by Sharon Lovejoy, garden expert and naturalist and has all sorts of inspiring garden ideas to share with your children, or your inner child. Some of the magical ideas in Sunflower Houses are:

• Floral Clock: mark the hours by when the flowers open and close
• Kinder Garden: Tiny Garden filled with plants from A to Z
• "Fish in a Bottle": How to grow a zuke or cuke in a bottle
• Barnyard Garden: like with Colt's foot, bee balm, cowslip, gooseberry, etc.
• A Child's Own Rainbow: Flowers and plants planted in curving rows, one row red, one orange, one yellow, and on. . .
• Butterfly garden
• Sunflower House
• Bean Covered tepee
• Flower People
• Flower Chains
• Leaf Hats

You can see how intriguing these ideas are. I decided on making a bean tepee that very next day and with Stella on my back I chopped down six young alders and began to string them together. I am almost done, I just need to find more hay bale string. The girls loved it when I tied sheet around the tepee and made a little hideout. My plan is to move the tepee to the garden and plant beans all around it and wait for the beans to cover the tepee, all the while enjoying it. I think I will make a couple more tepees now that I see how easy and fun it is! If you are a gardener or want-to-be-gardener and you have kids this book is a MUST HAVE!

SOME LINKS:

Also checkout Sharon Lovejoy's book: "Roots, Shoots, Buckets, and Boots: Activities to do in the garden"
Sharon Lovejoy's Blog and pictures of her bean tepee: http://sharonlovejoy.blogspot.com/2009/03/spring-is-in-soil-and-air.html

Buy her books directly from her, personally inscribed: http://www.sharonlovejoy.com/bookorder.html

Buy her books at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Sharon%20Lovejoy&page=1

Checkout her book: Sunflower Houses: Inspiration from the Garden (garden discoveries for all ages)

Here is my tepee process, in pictures:
Because the alders are so abundant on the farm, I chose to use them for the tepee. They also grow very straight. On the downside the wood doesn't last long in the elements.

Putting the sticks together: it turned out much bigger than I expected.

Using hay bale twine to tie the poles together. the twine lasts a long time, and is easy to find (usually). Almost done in the pic, a few more to go.The girls began placing flowers inside the tepee.