28Apr 2023 by catbird 1 Comment
Maypole Happiness Trees & Garlands

Maypole Happiness Trees & Garlands

Craft Project, May Day, Nature Art, Play
The last Friday in April is Arbor Day in the United States. (There are several other Arbor Day observances in other countries as well!) I knew I was going to do a May Day post on Arbor Day so I immediately thought of maypoles which were once made from trees. Arbor Day is a day to celebrate and plant trees and I was immediately reminded of an old project we did during covid lockdown to celebrate special trees. Everyone choose a tree that was special to them, in their yard, in a park or somewhere they went every day and decorated it with natural or compostable decorations. We called them happiness trees, in part because they brought joy to others during lockdown. As a part of that project we researched…
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27Apr 2023 by catbird 1 Comment
Fairy Houses

Fairy Houses

May Day, Nature Art, Play, Spring Portfolio
May Day is said to be a fortuitous time to leave gifts and offerings for the fae. To celebrate we always make a point of building some fairy houses and leaving them some spring flowers and baubles. My kids will build fairy houses independently for hours... In fact, maybe I should be leaving a gift for the fairies! They construct ever growing fairy villages and encampments with different types of buildings, an armory (yes those are fairy swords..) and hidden storage bunkers. There are markets and food storage- what more could a fairy need? The kids spend the day outside being creative and getting fresh air and I don’t need to worry about the fae poisoning my cattle… traditionally many May Day/Beltane rituals were designed to ward off or appease…
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14Apr 2023 by catbird 2 Comments
Tube Knitting with Plarn

Tube Knitting with Plarn

Craft Project, Earth Day, Learning, Nature Art, Play, Recycled Materials
What you ask is plarn? It's a combination of the words yarn and plastic, so it's essentially "yarn" made from discarded plastic grocery bags. Those plastic grocery bags are a scourge on the environment, they always seem to find their way into woods and waterways, where they are often mistaken for food by wildlife. One of the things we like to do to celebrate Earth Day is to make use of materials that are traditionally discarded and/or littering natural areas. This can be from trash collected during clean ups (my first first public sculpture when I was in high school were giant trees made from trash collected during a big clean up!) or trash from your home and school that you can divert from the landfill and make something useful…
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29Mar 2023 by catbird 1 Comment
Fast Dyed Natural Easter Eggs

Fast Dyed Natural Easter Eggs

Craft Project, Nature Art, Play, Spring Equinox
I love to make natural dyes and I love to naturally dye easter eggs. When my kids were super little they didn't mind waiting overnight for the eggs to change color, but as they've gotten older and heard the siren song of the grocery store kits, they have lost interest in the natural dye process and requested the tablets more and more. (They usually humor me a little bit anyway...) I stumbled on this method by accident really, when I was making my conventional naturally dyed eggs post I was muttering to myself about how much better turmeric dye bath with alcohol is. I happened to have some already prepared so I tested it out of curiosity. It worked so much better than the water based dye- the color was…
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25Feb 2023 by catbird 3 Comments
Dying Eggs with Natural Materials

Dying Eggs with Natural Materials

Craft Project, Foraging, Nature Art, Play, Spring Equinox, Spring Portfolio
Eggs are a classic symbol of spring, while they seem fairly ordinary to us these days, they must have felt magical to ancient people. One minute they look like a cold and lifeless rock, the next they explode with life. It's exactly what the landscape if doing, one minute its winter, cold and dead, and then suddenly new life begins cropping up everywhere. Traditions around decorating and dying eggs substantially predate the easter eggs we now think of. It's a perfect way to celebrate the Spring Equinox. There is always a rash of natural egg dying posts this time of year, but I feel like they often fail to really explain the difference between natural and chemical dying. With those grocery store kits you can pop an egg into dye…
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24Feb 2023 by catbird 1 Comment
Singing (Playing, Crafting & Learning) in the Rain

Singing (Playing, Crafting & Learning) in the Rain

Craft Project, Learning, Nature Art, Play, Spring Equinox
It rains more in spring. The earth seems to need it to wake up. It's a much gentler sort of rain that we tend to get in the summer. It's some of the best rain to play outside in because there is rarely thunder and lightening with it. There are a million ways to enjoy spring rain- not the least of which is just walking around and jumping in puddles! Below are some of our favorite ways to play in the rain. Rain Painting Rain painting is simple and uses supplies that you probably have on hand already. The only thing that can be tricky is explaining to younger children that the rain is going to change their picture, but once you've done it once or twice it makes sense.…
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20Feb 2023 by catbird 1 Comment
Kindness Bread

Kindness Bread

Learning, Nature Art, Play, Recipes
Mother Holle is a classic Grimm’s fairytale in which a mistreated step sister falls down a magical well to a fairy realm in where she is rewarded for being kind to Mother Holle with gold. (There is of course also a “bad” sister who does everything wrong and is punished in proper Grimm fashion.) The moral of the story is that "industrious children are rewarded and lazy children are punished" although I like to view it in a more modern sense- that kindness is rewarded. Nerd alert- Mother Holle is cataloged as AT 480 in the International Folktale catalog, under "Supernatural Tasks." It is one of a large number of folktales that focus on the industrious/ lazy dynamic. For this project we decided to focus on kindness and some of…
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13Feb 2023 by catbird No Comments
A Valentine for your Babies 3 Ways

A Valentine for your Babies 3 Ways

Craft Project, Foraging, Garden, Nature Art, Nature Collection, Valentine's Day
I have always found Valentine's Day to be kind of a weird holiday (full disclosure, its also my birthday.) I mean why do school children give each other valentine's about romance? I have shifted my thinking about it somewhat by diving into winter birds and the start of nest making season, but this year I wanted to make something for my own little guys too and was inspired by some research I was doing for the floriography valentines I made earlier. As it turns out moss is symbolic of maternal love-- and it makes for an adorable nature crafting material so what better jumping off point? The plants I picked out to use are: Moss: maternal love Pansy: merriment Pussywillow: motherhood Cinquefoil: beloved child Fern: fascination & magic Juniper: protection…
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13Feb 2023 by catbird 2 Comments
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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