More info coming soon.

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Flower crowns are beautiful and your little pixie or princess will love it.

Make a bunch for a fairy party or just enjoy a little mother and daughter time.

How to:

Cut a vine and remove the leaves. I used a wisteria vine this time but you can use whatever you have on hand. Cut and bend it into a circle. Check the size of the hoop by putting it on the child’s head. Use a piece of wire or a string to hold the vine. Use flowers and leaves that are available in your garden. Use a wire or string to wrap around the hoop securing more flowers as you go around.

Pretty little pixie girl wearing a crown of fresh flowers.

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During a recent “green” sewing and crafting workshop I was giving to children, these fairy houses were made. I’m continually impressed by their collective creativity. Now the woods surrounding our house are filled with welcoming homes for visiting fairies. Don’t you want to go out and make your own?

Let these pictures inspire you but not limit you in your building. Start by taking a walk and gathering supplies along the way. Scout out good locations for your fairy home. All manner of natural materials make good additions to these structures: flowers, feathers, leaves, sticks, bark, moss, pine cones, rocks, acorns, berries…

*Be sure not to overharvest living materials. Moss for example is very slow growing.

Moss table with pinecone seats for fairies.

Moss chair cleverly designed by 10 year old for the comfort of her fairy friends.

Fairy doll in her garden.

Doll was a gift made by a talented friend.

Artist at work.

Welcoming fairy accommodations.

What fairy could resist?

Don’t forget a stash of food to offer visiting fairies.

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I designed these charming mushroom pincushions out of recycled materials and pieces of branches. If you change the design a bit, you could make a forest of trees in a similar way. –Another day perhaps. These pincushions could also be adapted into cupcake pincushions. Just scrape off the bark and paint the stump with lines like a cupcake bottom.

I know that mushroom pin cushions are old news but I’ve put my own spin on the idea (using wood for the stumps). The wood bottm makes them very stable.

Incites on how to make your own:

Gather supplies as seen in picture. –jar lid, wood stump, fabric, stuffing, plate for tracing. You will also need needle and thread and glue. Sometimes I use wool roving for the stuffing. The natural oils from the wool help to keep needles from rusting.

First, use a plate to trace a circle on a salvaged knit shirt. You want fabric that will stretch like a t-shirt.

The size of the plate will depend on the size of the jar lid you are using, which will depend on the stump size. The fabric will need to be bigger than the jar lid by about two inches extra all the way around. Smaller mushroom tops will require less, so test it out.

Using a straight stitch (put the needle up then down, up, then down through the fabric) to sew all the way around your circle. Sew near the edge. I like to use a metal jar lid to help shape the mushroom to have a flatter bottom.

Pull the thread to gather the fabric. Add the jar lid and the stuffing and gather some more.

Knot the thread to hold the gather.

Glue the mushroom top to your stump. I used a branch that I chopped with a miter saw. You could use a hand saw. Put something heavy on top until the glue dries.

I made the tall mushroom out of a second-hand infant hat. I like to use it to hold threaded needles for quick access.

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Happy 4th of July everyone!

Looking for an easy craft to decorate for this patriotic holiday? Here is a super easy craft that is red, white and blue- and “green” too. The swirls make you think of fireworks.

Save the twist ties off lettuce or other vegetables. In this instance you will want to use the ones that are red, white and/ or blue. Make tight curly cues by winding around a pencil and make larger curls freehand. Twist one end to the top of a clean saved chopstick (saved from last year’s outings). You can glue in place. Arrange your sticks in something you already have: an interesting jar could be nice.

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Meet my daughter’s pet rat named Kitty.

Entertain your pet rat with a multi-story playhouse. Rats are curious little things and are very smart. Keep your pet rat busy with houses you can make yourself out of salvaged boxes.

To make:

Find boxes that will fit inside your enclosure. Use them to create the playhouse especially for your rat. Don’t be sad if it gets chewed up or soiled. Just make a new one. Changing up your rat’s environment will make your rat happy.

Don’t forget to hide food around for your rat to find.

Here is a very simple home for a rat made out of a tissue box.

Before Kitty had her own home, my daughter liked to share her doll house.

Here are a few shots I took. Hope you enjoy them!

Hope you enjoyed my little story about a rat.

It’s environmentally friendly to share your toys. Right!?

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Make something fun for your cat and have fun doing it. My husband and kids made this box tower playhouse for our then young cat. It has many levels, two observation decks and plenty of interior places to explore.

To Make:

Gather boxes. Cut holes. Tape together. I could give you step by step instructions for making this box tower but that would take away half the fun of it. Be creative with your design.

Our box tower has holes at the base for the cat to enter. The stacked boxes have holes in the top of one box and through the bottom of the box above so our cat could climb higher. Windows were added. The most important part is the observation deck. Cats like to have a place to perch up high.

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I rubbed mineral oil on this one. As you can see it darkens the wood.

Tree coin necklaces are so pretty yet are very easy to make. I call them tree coin necklaces because they are disk shaped pieces of wood cut from tree branches. Children will need to have parents do the prep work on this project but will enjoy putting the necklaces together and decorating them.

How to:

Coin shaped pieces are cut from tree branches. I use a miter saw to do this job. If you want to make many coin pieces of the same thickness, clamp a piece of wood onto the saw leaving the desired distance from the cut.

A hole is drilled into the “coins”. Place a scrap board underneath your coin while drilling to protect the surface you are working on or place the “coin” in a vice while drilling.

Use string, yarn or ribbon to tie around the neck.

They are lovely plain (I love the circular wood grain) or you can decorate with stamps or personalize with a “green” message.

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This project is simple enough for even very little hands, although, you might need to draw out the rainbow strips in which they are to fill.

For a more tile-like look use thin cardboard which is thicker than tiles made from regular paper.

For more information on paper mosaics see my post: Recycle Your Cereal Boxes and More Into Pretty Paper Mosaics

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You probably have all the supplies you will need for this project right in your recycle bin. Cereal boxes and salvaged note book covers become art when cut into pieces and cleverly arranged.

How to tips:

Design your mosaic and sketch it lightly on a stiff piece of paper. I use foam board pieces and mat board scraps from a framing shop. These scrapes would otherwise be wasted. Call around to see what might be donated to you.

Save scrap paper (such as colored handouts form school, phone book covers, magazine pages…) or thin cardboard (such as cereal boxes, crackers and other food boxes, non-food boxes, notebook and coloring book covers…).

Cut the boxes in strips ½ inch thick. Focus on the parts with the most pure color. I like to use a paper cutter. More advanced students might want thinner strips in order to achieve finer details.

Here I have organized the scraps by setting ice cream containers into Clementine boxes.

Artists will cut up the strips to make their own mosaic tiles. It isn’t necessary to cut all the pieces in squares. Sometimes you will need more of a triangular shape to fill the space. Besides, you want to have a broken tile look.

Work one area at a time. Fill in the areas by gluing your “tiles” on one by one. Paste works well and is environmentally friendly. Glue sticks work nice but create a lot of plastic waste. If using white glue, I recommend using an old paint brush to apply the glue.

When done and the glue/ paste is dry, apply a layer of Modge Podge or an equivalent product.

*The butterfly mosaic above was a collaborative effort by young artists whose ages ranged from 6 to 11.

To see an example of a paper mosaic made from recycled thin cardboard such as cereal boxes, see my post: St. Patrick’s Day Rainbow Mosaic

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