Dandelion Heart by two great kids and Jade Moon.

 This is a little thing i did with the two lovely children i look after.

The children decided they wanted to make a heart shape.

Working together.

Two littlies very proud of their creation.

What a wonderful heart.

Natural Arts Workshop - birdboxes, mallet making, Insect hotels and natural inks and pigments.

Dani and myself just shared some of our experiments and discoveries at a workshop in our local comprehensive. The day consisted of some outdoor crafts - making bird boxes, bug hotels and mallets; and some natural arts - pewter casting, and painting and crushing natural pigments. Here are some of the photos...

Whittling sticks for bug hotels.

Adding the bug hotel roof.

Sawing in the rain, but still smiling.

Careful measuring.

People playing with natural inks and river stone pigments.

Adding the egg.

More crushing.

These girls decided to paint their bug hotel with the natural inks.

Oak galls and river stones.

Adding oil.

This girl had a very creative idea.

Jade helping some girls to put their bird box together.

Jade sharing the natural paints.

A final design after some experimentation.

A happy bird box maker.

Super duper bird box!

Whittling by the fire.

Another final design after experimentation.

This boy wanted to add some funky stripes to his mallet.

Experiments with natural paints...

Dani and i have been experimenting with making paint and inks from things like mud, river stones, oak gauls, beetroot, red cabbage water and iron in vinegar. So after lots of crazy kitchen alchemy - chopping, crushing, soaking, boiling, pickling etc we got some good results. Here are some pictures...

Crushed river stones before the egg was added.

Oak gall, oak gall with  iron vinegar, beetroot.

Dani painting with the earth pigments on to black paper.

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The final painting, by Dani Redd

Oak gall, with wax resist, by Jade Moon.

Black ink pen and tea, by Dani Redd.

Red cabbage water, Oak gall and Oak gall and iron vinegar, by Jade Moon.