As an Early Childhood Educator, I am always looking for new ideas and innovative methods of presenting educational content. Inquiry-based learning is especially important in our classroom. One of my favourite ways to discover new approaches is by exploring how different communities embrace educational opportunities. Sometimes it’s a library, a park, a garden, or other community spaces, and in this case, a museum.
On a recent visit to the small town where I grew up, I made such a discovery. The local museum, which is housed in a heritage home next-door to what used to be my grandparent’s house, had put together an amazing inquiry filled outdoor space. Under a canopy of oak trees on the museum’s lawn, there were games like ping pong, skee-ball, and giant jenga available to the public for young and old to play. There were also different seating arrangements scattered around, including picnic tables, muskoka chairs, iron butterfly benches, and stumps to sit on. There were people reading books and having picnic lunches while enjoying the shade of the old oak trees that I grew up with.
The space that I found most interesting was the many hands-on opportunities for children. There was water exploration tables, a huge sandbox, a giant bubble maker that you could stand inside of, small world play with sunflower seeds, and many more. The children visiting these stations had huge smiles on their faces as they explored their curiosity and made discoveries.
The centrepiece of the museum’s outdoor space was a community garden. Local varieties of flowers and lots of different vegetables filled the garden beds. As an avid gardener, I found the unique ways they used trellises for the climbing vegetables particularly inspiring. The potting shed had information for the public on tips and tricks for pollinator and native plant gardens as well.
I would love to meet whoever led this incredible community project. The rich content and attention to detail that went into it was admirable. There was also a sign with all the local businesses and volunteers who contributed to make this special project possible. What an amazing attraction to have as part of this small town community! Stay tuned for another post, when I have time to visit the museum inside.
On a recent Pinterest search I discovered The Hammered Flower by Michelle Moore designs. Michelle has created pieces of clothing and art using the hammered flower technique. Her items on Pinterest and Instagram are simply beautiful and inspiring.
The actual process of hammering flowers onto cloth and fabric requires a pre treatment of an alum wash to improve colour and longevity. I however wanted to try this technique on paper. I choose watercolour paper for this application.
My Mom brought me some of her pansies to give it a try. The process was quite simple and the results were amazing. I simply lay the flowers on the water colour paper one at a time. I then covered the pansy with a piece of doubled over paper towel and then used my hammer. It was easy enough to pull back the paper towel to see what spots still needed to be done. There were a few spots that I had missed but I just had to put the paper towel back down again and repeat the hammering.
The exact flower shape and colour transferred onto the water colour paper and then I just had to carefully peel off the pounded flower to discover the print. A recommendation would be to use a pair of fine tweezers to remove the flower remnants as to not smudge your work. It was so exciting to see how well this worked! I am hoping to try it with leaves and other flower petals as well.
My plan is to transform these prints into handmade cards with a simple ‘thank you’ or ‘happy birthday’ message on them. I am also thinking about maybe outlining parts of the flower with a thin lined art marker.
Will you try flower hammered art? This art project is a great combination of my love of gardening and the creative process.
While doing my usual perusing through Instagram and Pinterest this recipe for strawberry muffins caught my eye. The recipe is from Two Peas and Their Pod. The recipe was super simple to follow and I had all the ingredients that I needed on hand including fresh local strawberries.
I have to admit I have never made muffins with fresh strawberries before. The secret tip of combining the diced strawberries with a little bit of flour really worked well so that the strawberries don’t just mush into the batter. Another great tip I appreciated was to use two muffin trays and space out your muffins, six per tray so that the muffins have more space to bake. This was a brilliant tip and one that I will for sure use again. I have made muffins so many times and had them all spread into each other, not exactly pretty.
I also loved the sprinkle of turbinado sugar on top to add some crunch. My Dad always says muffins with a crunchy top are the best kind. I think these will be a winner in his books.
I have been saving these fancy parchment baking liners for a special recipe and I thought this was the perfect occasion to use them. I love when I go to a cafe or a bakery and they have these parchment liners. The muffins just seem so much fancier, and taste better.
Maybe you will try these yummy strawberry muffins in your kitchen. Enjoy!
This Spring I have been diligently working to improve our front porch. Slowly, I’ve added some new things that make it a place where I would want to sit and have a cup of coffee or tea, a place where I would like to stay a while.
Porches hold a special place in my heart. My grandparents had a front and back porch, both enclosed with lots of windows and filled with beautiful light. We would visit and have tea and eat homemade cookies on these porches. They were so well loved, and I have so many great family memories of them.
I wanted to try to recreate some of what I loved about those spaces on my own porch. Adding an outdoor rug, new pillows, and new plants has made a huge difference. It’s already starting to feel warm and welcoming.
My latest addition is these planters. I wanted to create a ‘living wall.’ Living walls are usually secured to (non-living) walls, but this one will hang and create some privacy at the open end of our porch. It will continue to grow and fill in as the summer progresses. I am hoping for healthy, lush, trailing plants that will fill the space.
I started by attaching a cedar board to the ceiling of our front porch (with the help of my husband, this is definitely a two person job). This provides a place to anchor in the screw hooks that will hold the new hanging baskets.
I then filled the baskets with a good quality soil, and planted a variety of trailing plants that I bought at my local garden centre, mostly different kinds of ivy. The hanging baskets and inserts were purchased at my local Dollar Tree. I plan on adding some baby spider plants that I currently have rooting in the house for a little more filler over the next coming days.
Overall, I am super happy with how this project is turning out. I am excited to see how my ‘living wall’ fills in and to watch it progress throughout the Summer. I will keep you posted on how it’s doing. Happy gardening!
Many years ago, on a road trip to the Kitchener/Waterloo area we picked up an old whisky barrel. I remember that we saw a sign on the side of the road saying they had barrels for sale and I thought it would be a great idea to buy one. As great of an idea as this was, fitting it in our vehicle was an entirely different matter. However we did have success!
When we arrived home we transformed it into a rain barrel, before rain barrels were even a thing. We used it for many years and collected rain to water our plants. Eventually it started to break down and wasn’t such a good rain barrel anymore but, we couldn’t bare to let it go to waste. So we disassembled it, we kept all the long barrel slats, and removed all the metal barrel rings.
We saved these materials for years, knowing that they would be used for different projects one day. My husband created an awesome light fixture for his office using some of the wooden slats.
Our latest project though was for our fire pit area. We wanted to create a space where we could keep the wood for our summer evening camp fires. We selected two of the smaller barrel rings, and went to Home Depot to purchase some heavy duty twine. The next step was to saw one of the barrel slats in half for the base. After assembling this fire wood holder we placed it out in our backyard and it works like a charm and looks good too!
I have always wanted a potting bench for my backyard garden. A place that I could transplant seedlings. The opportunity to store my gardening tools, display flowers and treasures from the garden, and a general outdoor work surface.
This was a weekend project that my husband and I did together.
We used cedar to create this bench. Cedar wood is very nice to work with, and it also holds up well to the outdoor weather.
We used tools that we already had in our garage to make the cuts we needed. The next step was to screw the pieces together to form the potting bench. We made the top deep enough to be able to have a good work surface, which was important to me.
I wanted somewhere to hang things like, twine, gardening scissors, and other gardening tools. We had some left over chicken wire which was the perfect thing to attach to the top portion using a staple gun. We also reused some old Ikea shelves for added storage on the top as well.
I think this is a great addition to my backyard gardening space. I love the way it turned out, it is absolutely perfect!
Are you like me and have a stash of buttons? I have collected these vintage buttons over the years. Some from my grandmother, my mom, myself and even antique stores. I store them in a glass mason jar in my craft room so they will be ready when I want to do a project. To be honest, I really have more than one jar!
I feel like each tells a story. Each one individual and unique. It is fun to think of what garment or accesory they started out on.
On a recent visit to a local antique market, I had the goal in mind to procure a set of vintage salt and pepper shakers. I thought they would make the perfect vessel for some button flowers.
As luck would have it I was able to find this lovely set for $2 a piece and they were perfect. I love how the glass swirls in a pattern and the delicate top sits upon the shaker just so.
I had fun creating my button flowers for these vintage vessels. The project started with pouring out all the buttons onto a large tray so I could look through them. I cut green floral wire into pieces and then attached the button through the holes. I then twisted it to secure it and was able to then arrange them into the vessels.
Is this a project you would try yourself? Here are some tips to keep in mind before starting. First, you will need to make sure that your floral wire is skinny enough to fit in the holes of the salt and pepper shakers. Second, you will need a good pair of wire snips and a pair of craft needle nose pliers. Third, you can also purchase buttons if you don’t happen to have vintage ones. I also doubled up some of the buttons for a more layered look. Have fun and mix and match colours and styles of buttons, the options are endless.
Have you ever just painted carefree and filled up a page with colour?
Recently my daughter introduced me to collage, and the beauty of piecing together painted pieces of paper to create art. She follows a well known artist, Clover Robin, who uses collage brilliantly in her artwork. She is a surface pattern designer and illustrator who lives in England. We have purchased several of her pieces and love her work.
In the classroom, my teaching partner and I have explored Eric Carle and his collage illustrations with our kindergarten students. It was so interesting to learn that he too uses different media and textures to create his illustrations. He then stores the papers in like-colours to use when creating his beautiful, detailed illustrations for his children’s books. As a class, we explored texture and colour with paint and different types of combs and pattern-making supplies. The students then transformed their paintings into collaged flowers inspired by the book, The Tiny Seed. They turned out beautifully and the students gained a better understanding of the creation process.
I was inspired and created these spring flower collages that I wanted to share. The next step that I would like to explore is to try layering and overlapping with the collage pieces to create a more elaborate design.
Here is the perfect quick place setting if you are looking for a little something extra for your Easter table scape!
I found these great mini terracotta pots at my local dollar store. I have reused them multiple times for different projects. They are just so cute!
For this project, I gathered the following materials: a foam ball, wool roving, a small piece of felt for the feet, a glue gun and a felting needle. I simply wrapped the foam ball with the wool roving and began poking it with the felting needle. A special note to those of you that have never used a felting needle, these are super sharp, so practice caution when using them. Once the entire ball was covered I then felted a tail. Then feet were added with hot glue and I even added in a felted orange carrot.
To finish off my little Easter flower pot I cut a piece of card stock to create a little sign, which was hot glued to a cut skewer stick. Green paper shreds fill in the flower pot as a final touch.
I have also used these little pots with paper shreds and mini chocolate eggs for place settings. Another idea is placing some Spring seasonal flowers into the mini flower pots. You can also add family members’ and friend’s names to your card stock signs. This makes your table more personalized and adds a nice touch.
Happy Easter!
While visiting the East Coast on a family road trip a few years ago I discovered the oat cake. It sounds so simple and it is so delicious. It tastes a little like an oatmeal cookie but with more bite and it just is amazing.
Many East Coast bakeries had oat cakes as part of their local offerings. I was even surprised to see that Tim Horton’s out East offered the oat cake on their menu. Oat cakes were enjoyed a lot while I was on vacation and I had always thought I would like to try to make them at home.
I decided to tackle this bake using The East Coast Kitchen recipe. It was a simple straight forward recipe and had some tips and tricks to having a successful bake. I gathered my ingredients and began.
As they were baking, the kitchen filled with the wonderful smell of baking cookies. I was so excited to see if I really could replicate the flavours at home. I was challenging myself to try something new and had my fingers crossed that they would taste as good as I remembered.
Once the edges were lightly browned I pulled them from the oven. They looked perfect! Now to let them cool. I’m not going to lie, I might have sneaked one from the cooling rack before they were completely cooled. Oops. After all I had made 25 from the recipe and really only 24 fit on the cooling rack…
My expectations were not disappointed. These cute little oat cakes were perfect circles of wonderfulness. I had such success, and have saved this recipe so that I can make it again and again. I shared some, ate some, ate some more, and shared a few more. Challenge accepted and achieved. Oat cakes made by mum with love!
