Crafts
Tambourine
- Two paper bowls (not plastic coated)
- Various small objects (no large rocks or pine cones, thank you), preferably collected outside: seeds, pebbles, pieces of wood, sand, etc.
- Marking pens, glue, colored sand
- Strips of cloth, raffia, etc.
- Stapler and/or glue
Decorate the bottoms of the bowls and let dry flat, decorated side up. When dry, put the small objects in one bowl, put other on top and put glue around the lips. Staple the lips together to secure. Let dry. Punch holes around the lips and decorate with cloth, string and raffia. (Notice how different objects inside the tambourine will make different sounds.)
Flower Press
- 2 pieces of wood, about 6”x 6” x 1/4” (The exact size is not important, but it should be small and light enough to carry comfortably in a backpack.)
- 4 wing nuts and bolts
- Several pieces of cardboard cut from a cardboard box, the 1” smaller than the wood drill
Put the two pieces of wood flat sides together and drill holes through each corner to fit the wing nuts. Put the cardboard between the wood.
Put plants between pieces of cardboard to press, and screw the whole thing together tightly. You can unscrew the bolts and add pieces of cardboard and plants.
Take this with you when you go weed walking.
After a couple of weeks, lift the plants off carefully with a blade or small spatula. They will be brittle. Glue this into your plant notebook with information on the plant: name (common and Latin if possible), description, where and when found. If you don’t know what the plant is, you will have a good specimen to use when you go through books or take it to a nursery or botanical garden to identify it.
