Leaves, acorns, pine cones and crafts!

Hazel's handprint

Today I adapted a recipe for No-Bake Craft Clay from The Arts and Crafts Busy Book by Trish Kuffner. When it was ready, we made nature impressions from the things we gathered on our nature walk on Sunday. We also did one of Hazel's hand. Hazel really enjoyed this craft and my hands smelled of cinnamon for quite awhile afterwards even with washing. We are going to try new scents next. I'm thinking I will add some vanilla extract the next time and may play with other extracts and essential oils. It adds a whole new sense to play dough.

Oak leaf and acorns

Oak Leaf

My oak leaf and acorn

No Bake Craft Clay Revised:
Food coloring (I used red and yellow to make orange and the dots are the cinnamon)
1 1/4 cups cold water
1 cup cornstarch
2 cups baking soda
Cinnamon (or other scent of your choice)
Saucepan
Plate
Damp cloth (that you don't care if it gets messy)

Add the food coloring to the water and then put in pan. Then combine the water with the cornstarch, baking soda and cinnamon (I probably used about 2 teaspoons, but didn't measure it). Mix over medium heat until it becomes the consistency of mushy mashed potatoes. The original recipe said about 4 minutes but I found it took much longer like 15 minutes. Then scoop onto the plate and cover with the damp cloth until cooled. (It does solidify while cooling.) When cool knead the dough and shape. To do the nature impressions take a small ball and make it into a disc big enough to take your piece of nature. Press the leaf or whatever you are using down into the clay and then lift up. You may want to let the disc set a little before pressing to make sure you get more details.

The other craft we did today was leaf rubbings. I found this idea on Michaels website...well actually an email they sent me. I printed out a few copies of their leaf shaped book and gave some to Hazel and kept some. I showed her how to do leaf rubbings. My original hope for this project was to keep her busy while her toe nails dried, but she decided she did not want to try the Piggy Paints with me today after I touched her toe to apply the base coat. So my toes are pink and hers are not. However she did have fun doing some rubbings and coloring in general. You can definitely tell which ones I did and which ones she did. We did not cut them out and I probably won't since several of them went outside of the outline. Hazel has not learned to color in the lines yet.