We’ve gone geocaching many times & decided it was time to try letterboxing.

The first thing we each needed for our letterboxing adventures were journals. Of course, there’s always the option of buying a journal. But I like the cost of making our own much better, so that’s what we did.

We used the instructions at Layers of Learning.

THE COVER

I tore paper bags into a rectangle shape. Then the kids crumpled the rectangle.

Next they rubbed crayons on the crumpled paper.

When they were done coloring their cover, I wet them just a bit & put them in the oven to melt the crayon wax. Honestly, melting the was didn’t work as well as I was hoping. Probably just doing the rubbing would have been good enough.

After the covers cooled we used stamps & oil pastels to decorate them.

For the most part, the kids went for an abstract look.

I opted for a minimalist approach.

THE PAGES

I used regular copy paper, folding 4 sheets in half & sewing a line on the crease. I made four sets of these for each journal.

Then I stacked the four paper sets together &, using a hammer, nailed a hole through the stacked paper. Each place I needed a hole for sewing the cover & paper together I used the hammer/nail technique. This section is described much better at Layers of Learning.

SEWING THE COVER & PAGES TOGETHER

Next, I played around with where exactly I wanted to place the paper on the cover. Once I figured that out I placed the paper on the cover. Then, came the hard part.

Why this was so difficult, I don’t know. It seems so simple. But, I had a heck of a time with it.

I liked the look of the binding on the example at Layers of Learning, so I wanted to replicate it.

I used embroidery thread and a needle to sew the cover & paper together. The outside turned out the way I wanted, but the first & last pages don’t look too tidy. The middle pages look ok, though.

Our completed journals.

I had originally thought I would sew buttons on the front cover to help hold the cover closed. But, after a couple days the journals quit trying to open on their own. So, I didn’t mess with it.

We’ve gone letterboxing a couple times & so far these journals are working out great.

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Today the kids argued with each other far more than I could take. So, I came up with a project that entertained them at least for a little bit. Farmer John had been saving some of our quail eggs with the hopes of incubating them. I know some of them, though, had been layed more than 10 days ago. We don’t put eggs in our incubator that are more than 10 days old. So instead of just throwing them out, I repurposed them. They held the paint for our abstract art.

SET UP

First step was to open the egg. I used a knife to carefully break the egg near the top. I tried to not break the entire top off, so I could use it as a lid once I filled the egg with paint. I emptied out the egg white & yolk and rinsed the egg with soap & water.

Next I squeezed paint into the quail egg. I also added a smidgen of water hoping it would make the paint a little thinner & splatter better. Because everything is better if it sparkles, I also added glitter.

THROWING PAINT

Then the kids got to throw the eggs. The eggs were actually kind of difficult to break & splatter the paint. They had to throw them pretty hard & sometimes throw it again.

We used watercolor paper. I told the kids to do their best to throw the eggs at the center of the paper, so as much paint as possible stayed on the paper. Most of the paint did stay on the paper, but some also splattered onto the gravel. I’m not sure how they managed it, but all 3 kids ended up with a little paint in their hair.

This was so simple, yet because it was messy & involved throwing something the kids loved it. We always have plenty of eggs, so I’m sure we will try this again.

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Back in early August we collected plants, flowers, berries & leaves to try making natural dyes. It took us a couple days to complete the process, but we ended up with a variety of dyed goodies.

MAKING THE DYE

The first step was to collect the items we were going to use to make the dyes. I was so proud of this box. It’s full of nearly every color of the rainbow plus white & brown.

I was quickly disappointed, though. The blackberries turned into a nice purple color. Everything else turned into a tannish color. It didn’t matter if the original plant was green, yellow or purple. The dye ended up being a light tan. In the end, I’m happy with how everything turned out. But, at first I was a bit bummed. I thought since I collected a variety of plants, we’d have a nice variety of colored dyes.

The process is fairly simple:
• Collect plants
• Cut plants into small chunks
• Add plant chunks to pot. Add water. Ratio = 1 cup plant chunks to 2 cups water
• Simmer about 2 hours
• Strain mixture, if needed

This took me many, many hours because I was trying out so many different plants hoping to find one that produced a fabulous dye color.
My favorite dye: Blackberries

Alder leaves & cones

Thistles & foxglove flowers that were about the same shade of purple. They cooked down to a color of ugliness.

We ended up with 11 different dyes.

I made a chart to show the various dyes. It is lacking color variety.

PREPARING THE MATERIAL

I’m not sure that it was truly necessary to prepare the material since we didn’t have any awesome plans for our fabric. But I read you should prepare it so the dye holds better, so we did. I did two fixative baths – one for the blackberries & another for the other plants. Here are the recipes I used:

Salt Fixative (for berries)
• 1/2 cup salt in 8 cups water.
• Boil fabric for 1 hour.

Vinegar Fixative (for other plants)
• 1 part vinegar to 4 parts water.
•  Boil fabric for 1 hour.

DYING FABRIC, PAPER & YARN

The berry dye was awesome.

For many of the items we let them sit in the dye for awhile, hoping to collect as much color as possible.

The dying process was weird & almost boring for the kids. The berry dye was fun because you could actually see the color on the paper. The other dyes, although the color looked rich in the bowl, was almost invisible on the paper. You almost couldn’t even tell you dyed it. The paper just looked wet. So again, I was a little let down. Once the paper dried, though, there was a noticeable change in color, which was a fun surprise.

I got bored with the lack of color, so, I started flicking the paper for fun. You couldn’t even see the tannish drops when they were wet.

Again, I was so bored with the color, but loved the berry color. So, I grabbed a bag of blueberries from the freezer and added them to the blackberry dye hoping to get some contrast in our fabric & paper. Once again, when the dye was wet the blueberry dye didn’t look much different than the blackberry dye. But once dry, you can really see a difference. I guess patience is the key to this project.

Our dyed goodies:

Top Left: Paper pieces – possibly stationary for a thank you note or gift tags. We were just trying a variety of techniques to see what the results would be.
Top Right: Note cards dyed by the kids.
Bottom Left: Dyed fabric
Bottom Right: The kids also dyed white yarn. The results aren’t wowing, but they’ve been having fun adding the yarn to other projects.

MAKING NOTE CARDS

Just because the result was unexpected, I’m sharing this pic. Farm Girl  simply swirled glue on her card and left it. The reaction left this pretty blue color.

Their finished note cards.

This project didn’t turn out as expected, but I’m still thrilled with the results & we’ve used their dyed pieces a number of times on other projects. If you try it, I’d love to see what you and your family have come up with. The possibilities are endless.

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We recently checked out a bunch of Eric Carle books from the library. We did a variety of activities based on the books, but by far our favorite was making a tissue paper collage Eric Carle style.

The Books

Maybe I grew up under a rock, but I sure don’t remember Eric Carle books as a kid. But yet, when we looked at the copyright many were dated even before I was born. I only became aware of him once I had kids.

One of my favorite things about his books are that they’ve got that extra something. The firefly lights up, the click beetle clicks & the rubber ducky squeaks. My favorite extras are the simple black dots in the book Hello, Red Fox. The whole book is tricking your eyes. You stare at the green fox for x amount of time, then stare at the black dot on the next page & you will see a faint red fox. Amazing. Fun. Exciting. There are multiple animals & colors to try throughout the story. The kids love it.

Our Collage

The beginning of our fancy cereal box paint palette looked like this…

.. When we were done, it looked like this. We definitely had fun with this project.

We read that Eric Carle makes most of his collages out of tissue paper & paint. So, that’s what we did. Layer by layer the kids & I added paint to the tissue paper, using different stroke techniques. It was a bit difficult at first since the tissue paper rips so easily. But, we soon got the hang of it & enjoyed the craziness of this type of painting.

We decided to make a group collage. The base is a piece of white poster board. Farm Kid1 made the Santa and sleigh, Farm Kid2 made Rudolph & I was in charge of the background.

Farm Kid2, a kinder, had some trouble cutting the tissue paper. Farm Kid1, 8 years old, had an easier time.

Farm Kid2 also made this snail.

Farm Kid1 made these creatures.

This was such a fun project. And, we have left over painted tissue paper so we will get to do it again soon.

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