Let the light shine through with beautiful pressed flower window art!

You will need:

Peeled crayons, kid scissors, an iron, and wax paper.

As well as:

Dried plant material such as pressed leaves and flowers, and dried flower petals.

Also, you can use an ironing board with an old cloth to protect the surface from melted crayon, or

 create a work surface by taping scrap fabric around cardboard.

1. Fold and crease a piece of wax paper in half with the waxier side on the inside. Then open it and sprinkle one half of the wax paper with crayon shavings. 

2. Arrange leaves and pressed flowers on the wax paper.

3. Fold the wax paper in half over shaved crayon bits and plant material. Cover with a scrap piece of fabric.

4. Have an adult help to press the wax paper with crayon, leaves, and flowers, covered with cloth, using an iron on the lowest setting, no steam. 

Helpful hint: Less is more!

Too much!

Just right!

See the difference.

Here is the window art on the left framed with white popsicle sticks, so it can sit on the window sill.

Here are some other beautiful examples:

Chaya leaf with asparagus fern.

Sweet potato leaves with dill flower stars.

Lantana.

Bonus!

I melted more crayon shavings onto the scrap fabric and fashioned it into a cool mask.

My kids said it looks like magnified germs. LOL.

It must be working.

 

It's the International Day of Biological Diversity!
Theme for 2020-Our Solutions are in Nature.
Hmmm? How about we transform our yards for Nature!

In the midst of preparing for this week's blog, one of my Philly friends, a champion for the Earth since its dawning, sent me a link to a webinar by author, Doug Tallamy. I joined, I watched, my mind is still exploding, and now I try to synthesize this information for families to apply at home.

But first,

Here is an amazing webinar presented on May 4, 2020 to Florida Wildflower Foundation members and friends, in which author Doug Tallamy does a superb job explaining the need to protect caterpillars and how we can do this in your own yards:

Doug Tallamy: A Guide to Restoring the Little Things that Run the World

Doug Tallamy's website supporting his book Nature's Best Hope.

So, in a nutshell, caterpillars are baby butterflies and moths. Butterflies and moths pollinate flowering plants, and the caterpillars are essential food for birds. No caterpillars=no fruit and seeds= no plants= no animals, no humans, no birds,  no life as we know it. 

85% of the property is privately owned, this includes our yards. If we look to "Nature" for our solution, as if it is something separate, something over there, something we drive to, something we pass a bill to protect; we are missing the most important place for us to live in harmony with nature- at our homes and yards, and in our neighborhoods.

So what can we do?

1. Shrink your lawn. 

My son put in a Monarch butterfly waystation as a school project. 

2. Plant keystone native plants. Keystone species hold the ecosystem together because so many other animals depend on them for survival. What is one of the most important keystone plants of all?

The oak tree!

Over 500 butterflies species use the oak tree at a host plant as caterpillars, providing food and shelter. 

Butterfly Tree Hosts

Also, plant native species and remove invasive species. Here is a great link to find Native plant species by zipcode: Native Plant Finder

A great app to use to identify plants and animals is INaturalist. https://www.inaturalist.org/

I love to add wildflowers as companion plants in my vegetable garden and around fruit trees. These cosmos are doing a great job attracting pollinators to my peach blossoms. 

3. Cut light pollution. Light pollution kills moths, and baby moths are caterpillars. Lights can also mess up the circadian rhythms of animals, confusing when they should sleep, eat, migrate, etc. Switch our home exterior lights to yellow LED bulbs and use motion-detecting lights.

4. Don't rake the leaves! Leaves under trees provide an important habitat for insects to pupate,  including most moths.

There is much more we can do to protect butterflies and caterpillars: avoid using pesticides, buy and eat organic; most importantly, learn. Learn what plants butterflies like, which plants are invasive- crowding out other native plants- and should be removed, and fall in love with nature and the wonderment of how everything truly is connected. 

My sketchnotes from Doug Tallamy's Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in your Yard.

Happy International Day of Families! 

Celebrate by creating a pressed leaf family tree.

International Day of Families, founded by the United Nations in 1994, occurs every year on May 15th. Each year has a different theme with this year's theme being "Families in Development." The theme was chosen to bring attention to issues, such as poverty and healthcare, and encourage policy change to better support families.  

This theme also brings to mind how families change. They grow with marriage and birth, and can also get smaller. Sometimes we have friends we are so close to they are like a family. Sometimes our pets are like family. I have a very interesting family. I was adopted as a baby by my mom and dad that raised me with two sisters. Changes happened, my parents married new partners and had new children. Two half-sisters and a step-sister became my sisters. Then in my twenties I met my birth mother, plus two brothers. In my 30's I met my birth father, plus two more sisters and a brother. Wow, talk about a family in development. 

I feel so grateful to be an adopted person as I personally know families come in all different shapes and sizes, and love is the most important bond of all. 

How to Make A Pressed Leaf Family Tree

1. Gather fresh leaves from plants. Harvest responsibly by only taking a few leaves from each plant. You don't have to choose tree leaves. I used buckwheat and sweet potato leaves because they were heart-shaped. I also gathered some black-eyed pea leaves and leaves from wildflowers.

2. To press leaves layer cardboard with 5 sheets of paper, gently arrange leaves on paper so leave lie flat without overlapping. Top with 5 more sheets of scrap paper. Keep stacking cardboard, paper, leaves, paper, cardboard, etc until you have all leaves sandwiched in the stack of paper and cardboard. Top with wood and heavy books.

3. The next day, switch out the paper with fresh dry scrap paper so the moisture from the leaves can continue to wick out.  The leaves will feel dry and thin as paper when ready for use in a collage, in about a week or two depending on the type of leaves used.

4. The family tree collage can be made on wood or cardboard. I used cardboard from the back of a large sketch pad.

5. Draw and the trunk of your tree, grass, and sky. No need to color in the top of the tree as it will be covered with real leaves.

6. Now cover with a thinned glue, one part water to one part glue. If you used marker, the color will spread, resulting in a more painterly quality. 

7. Begin to place your leaves on the tree, brushing on more glue as needed. Also, brush over the leaves with glue.

Tip: Have a variety of leaf sizes. Luckily I already had a few small leaves dried from another project. My large leaves made it hard to fill in small spaces.

8. Let the collage dry overnight. When it is dry, you are ready to add the names of your family members. I included my pets and a few close friends that are like family to me. Who is in your family?

Luna!