Hurry up spring!

Over the Christmas period, a shelf in our house was given over to a nativity scene (you can see it here). Once Christmas was over, the empty shelf sat there for a few weeks, looking miserable. One day I thoughtlessly placed a couple of objects there (they were floating without a home - do you have those?) just because it was somewhere to put them. Well, the contrast between the white background, the fairy lights (left over from Christmas) and the colour of these said objects (a Nicaraguan sun made of a coconut shell and seed pods and a Marimekko tin) just made me happy. Strange, I know, but the reason is that the shelf suddenly looked like spring. I am suffering, along with most of the northern hemisphere I am sure, with an urgent need for warmth and sun on my skin. Its just soooo darn cold out there. I am impatient for spring to come.

So, I decided to turn the redundant shelf, rather intentionally, into a spring corner, as our way of ushering in this most blessed of seasons.

I gathered objects and flowers in these bouncy spring colours. We made a rock spiral (oh so mosaicky, and in the spirit of "Land Art for Kids" by Richard Shilling featured on The Artful Parent blog and Land Artists, Andy Goldworthy). Some of the rocks were glittered by the kids and add a nice sparkle to the arrangement (it is still winter after all!).  Next week we will make some mosaic suns to hang from the shelf too - will post the tutorial for this as soon as its done!

 

Isabella was very excited to plant some sunflower seeds in these very colourful yoghurt pots (I had to raid the bird seed bag for them!). Some tulips and a budding hyacinth add the plant life and lastly, we made a huge, colourful paper tissue flower.

The inspiration for the tissue paper flower came from a broken whisk (lots of my inspiration comes from not wanting to throw things away and thinking "Surely we can find a use for this?").

You can get a whisk for under £1 these days, and with a bit of tissue paper and glue, this is a really inexpensive craft activity with a big, loud result! A new whisk will be even better than what we used as you will have a handle that can be used as a stem. Just imagine, several of these in a BIG vase!

Ok, so here's how we did it:

You need:

• A whisk
• Some sticky tape
• Different coloured tissue paper
• PVA / Children's white glue

Open up each loop of the whisk by bending it back so that each loop is like a petal

Use sticky tape to secure each loop to the one next to it, so that the flower stays nicely open

With liberal use of glue and patience, glue tissue paper onto each petal. It will be messy, and you might get holes in the paper. Just layer on top with another piece, a bit like paper mache'. 

When you have done all the petals (back and front), scrunch up a ball of green tissue for the middle of the flower and glue it on.

Finish by giving each petal a liberal coating of glue and then leave to dry. The glue will dry clear and make the tissue paper sturdy and shiny!

Beware, some colours of tissue paper (purple in particular) bleeds a lot when wet with glue - it stained our kitchen table (which we don't mind but you might!).

Have fun ushering in the spring.