Tag Archives: flowers

Rustic Clay Wind Chime

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Rustic Clay Wind Chime

It has been entirely too long between entries.  Life gets like that though I guess. I actually made this wind chime back in May, but have not had a chance to blog about it. Pretty sad when you can’t find a spare half hour in 7 months… but hopefully I will make up for that over the next 3 weeks while my schedule is not so hectic.

I am really happy with the way this project turned out, but it may not be something everyone can make at home, as you will need access to a kiln for the baking of the clay.  I am lucky enough to have that access 🙂  The discs were made from potters clay, available from any good craft shop, about $30 for 10kg (it’s really heavy when wet!). I rolled some clay out to around 5mm thick, then cut the circles out using a metal egg ring.  I then used a variety of leaves and flowers from around the garden, laid them over the clay and rolled over gently with a rolling pin, just enough to create the patterns as you can see.

Clay craft

Clay circles with leaf and flower prints.

Once baked and cooled, it was time for assembly.  Mr 5 and Miss 6 were happy to help decorate the pieces of fishing line with some chunky transparent glass beads I had in my bead stash.

Threading beads

Threading the beads on fishing line before assembly

We then went on a hunt for the perfect stick, attached it to a chair and began assembly.  I wanted the discs to taper down, so this was not something the kids could help with.

Assembly of wind chime

Assembling

Once I was happy with the positioning of each string, I tied them in a few more knots and decorated the top hanging twine.  Cut off any loose ends and it’s done.  As simple as that.

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Each disc touches the next ever so slightly, making a lovely sound in the breeze, without being too noisy.

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Easter Craft, Cute Little Chicks.

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Easter Craft, Cute Little Chicks.

Another very wet weekend has resulted in craft overload in this house.  Today we made some little chickens.  We will call them Easter Chicks, but they could really just be birds and would still be just as cute!  All we used was some small styrofoam balls, paint, google eyes a pack of feathers and a few different glues and double sided tape.  Oh, and some of those pre stuck felt shapes.  First we put the balls on a skewer to hold them up to paint.  The paint, like everything at the moment, took forever to dry, even under the ceiling fan.  Then we added the eyes and beaks.  It was a bit of trial and error with the glue, as some glue dissolves the styrofoam.  But we got there eventually, with some scrap booking glue.

Glue on eyes.

Glue on eyes.

 

For the beak, we just cut off petals from a foam flower sticker (which you will see further on).  We used several different methods to make the wings.  For thicker wings I folded over a feather from the centre, and secured both sides together with some double sided tape.  This worked well, but was a lot of fiddling around and you could see the tape through some, which I was not happy with.  Others I just cut away one side of the feather, to make it more a wing shape.  Then for the crazy birds I just stick the feathers straight in the side, to make them look like they were running.  Way cute!  Twisted some pipe cleaners to make legs and we were done.

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Ms 4 wanted to make a nest for them, so I grabbed some sugar cane mulch and let her build one outside, she then sprinkled a few flowers around which I thought was a great idea, so told her to get more.

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The coloured eggs are from another project we did this weekend, I will post more on them tomorrow.  They finished it off nicely though I think.

 

Spring goodness!

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Spring goodness!

I LOVE SPRING!  Sorry to yell at you all, but seriously?  Best season of the year.   Check out what I found at mums today – a Willie Wagtail  has made a nest in the most picture perfect position.  Like something out of a fairy scene.

Can you see it?

 

 

 

*Updated, the eggs have now hatched.

 

The hatchlings

The hatchlings.

 

around 2 weeks

around 2 weeks

 

2 weeks close up

close up.