09Mar 2024 by catbird No Comments
“When the World is Dreaming”

“When the World is Dreaming”

Craft Project, Free Printable, Learning, Picture Book Buds, Recipes
I love picture books. Like crazy, unofficial librarian in my own mind, love picture books. You may have noticed I often recommend books to go with various projects and recipes, I have a whole section devoted to books I love by topic, and include extensive reading lists in all of my books. I also love writing lessons and curriculum and am constantly have discussions with other authors about how I'd love to write a lesson for their book. So I decided to stop talking about it and start doing it! Introducing Picture Book Buds, where I will share some of my favorite picture books and pair them with a craft or lesson and an easy snack. (Check out Picture Book Hikes too which was a an offshoot of Picture Books…
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27Dec 2023 by catbird No Comments
New Year Family Bucket List Countdown Printable

New Year Family Bucket List Countdown Printable

Free Printable, Nature Journaling, New Year's Eve, Play, Winter
Every year we fill out a bucket list as a family so this year I decided to make one of my own! I made it black and white so it's easier to print out. You can color it if you'd like or leave it as is! The plants I used to decorate the bubbles are all ones I associate with the winter and the new year. Bay, juniper, pine, mistletoe, sage, rosemary, fir and snowdrops. The first 16 have prompts to get you thinking and the last four are blank so you can write in your own! Wishing you the happiest of new years! (Click on the image below to download!)
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12Nov 2023 by catbird 17 Comments
2023 Winter Solstice Countdown Calendar

2023 Winter Solstice Countdown Calendar

Craft Project, Free Printable, Play, Recipes, Winter, Winter Solstice
Countdown to the Winter Solstice with activities, recipes and crafts. Come back each day for a new surprise! The doors won't open until the correct day (So 1 opens on December 1st, on December 5th you'll be able to open 1-5, etc.) The calendar includes two exclusive excerpts from my Winter Solstice book that will only be available through this calendar and only in December 2023. Click on the image below to go to the calendar!! (This will take you to a new window) Click once to open the door and click a second time to open the tutorial. Happy Winter Solstice! Click Here for the materials list-- there are some spoilers here, but I tried my best to give you the info you needed without spoilers!
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24Sep 2023 by catbird 4 Comments
Harvest Moon Lanterns

Harvest Moon Lanterns

Autumn, Craft Project, Free Printable, Full Moon, Harvest Moon, Play
The Harvest Moon might just be my favorite full moon celebration, and its definetly the one we have been celebrating the longest. Its also an important celebration in many different cultures which is always something of interest to me. In Western Europe it was named the Harvest Moon because the light from the full moon helped farmers bring in the last of their crop well into the night. Many cultures believe that the Moon is at its brightest and fullest size at the Harvest Moon, coinciding with harvest time. At same time many American Indian tribes use full moon names referencing the harvest this time of year. (Read more here) In China and much of Southeast Asia there is the Mid-Autumn Festival. (In Japan its called: Tsukimi, Korea: Chuseok, and Vietnam:Tết Trung…
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11Jul 2023 by catbird 1 Comment
Thunder Cake

Thunder Cake

Free Printable, Full Moon, Recipes, Thunder Moon
We love the book Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco, especially during a good summer thunder storm. There is a cake recipe in that book of course, but being a celiac it wasn't very useful to me. Besides I was intrigued with the idea of making a cake that contained or was inspired by some food that had historically been associated with storms and lighting. I kept coming across references to truffles (the mushroom not the confection) in my search-- it would seem that the ancient greeks believed that they were born of Zeus' lightning bolts. Very poetic, but I wasn't sold on truffle cake... I considered copping out and doing candy truffles instead, but that didn't seem in the spirit of things. (As an aside there is a whole group of…
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04Jun 2023 by catbird 1 Comment
Brew Some Summer Sun Tea

Brew Some Summer Sun Tea

Foraging, Free Printable, Play, Summer Solstice
This is an excerpt from my new book: Summer Solstice: Celebrating the Brightest Day. The full chapter includes information about summer flowers, how light impacts the way we and different pollinators see flowers, creating an herbarium and a floral luncheon made with edible flowers. (Where this recipe came from!) Red Clover Sun Tea This recipe is fantastic because it not only uses summer flowers, but it is made with the help of the sun! I can remember making sun tea with my mom as a little girl and it was basically magic. Red clover on its own makes a tasty and healthy tea, but we add my kids’ favorite tea bags to make it more familiar for them. If I wasn’t trying to please picky kids, I would use the…
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13Feb 2023 by catbird 1 Comment
Printable Floriography Valentines

Printable Floriography Valentines

Craft Project, Free Printable, Garden, Nature Art, Valentine's Day
Floriography is the art of communicating with flowers, with different types of flowers having particular symbolic meanings. Some form of floriography has been practiced for thousands of years across Europe, Asia and Africa, but the best known floral code today is the Victorian Language of Flowers. In the 19th century, particularly in the UK and the United States, it became all the rage to send coded messages with flowers. There were floral dictionaries published and you could convey just about anything with the flowers you exchanged. (Although there are often multiple meanings for the same plants) Floriography was the emoji of the Victorian times, and like the emoji, it can be used to send coded messages. I put together the printable valentines below from some of the words that jumped…
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02Jan 2023 by catbird 1 Comment
New Year Nature Crowns!!

New Year Nature Crowns!!

Craft Project, Free Printable, Nature Art, Nature Collection, New Year's Eve, Play
One of the activities that we do every New Year's Eve is to make some sort of crown or party hat. In teh past we have mostly just colored in something free and printable and not gotten particularly fancy with it, but this year we decided that we needed to step up our crown game. The kids requested nature crowns, but we couldn't think of a way to make them "New Year's Eveish." I considered make stick crowns and spraying them gold because gold seems to be my default on NYE, but then I had an epiphany! Half of the crown would be bare sticks (like winter and the old year...) and the other half would be greenery (spring and the new year!) we ended up adding some sticks with…
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19Sep 2022 by catbird 2 Comments
Mushroom Foraging Badges!

Mushroom Foraging Badges!

Autumn, Craft Project, First Harvest, Free Printable, Nature Art, Nature Journaling, Play, Summer
I have been promising my kids that I would make them "badges" for each new mushroom they find while out hiking, this is not all of them, but it's a start! Print them on cardstock and cut them out, or if you are feeling adventurous print them onto fabric and sew them onto felt circles. Check out my mushroom foraging hike if you need suggestions for this fun activity! Click on the image above for the PDF!
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