February 17th, 2010
Signs of spring? Time to sow!President’s Day has gone, signs of spring are here, it’s time to plant those peas! If you are concerned that a late frost could destroy your crop, there are several things you can do to prevent that from happening. Cloches and the proper use of fresh manure are just a couple of ways you can protect your fragile seedlings.
Garden classes at the Orange Blossom have just begun! Join us to learn organic gardening practices and get the most out of this growing season!
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November 9th, 2009
Have you ever wondered what to do with all those broken crayons? Well. Here’s a project that is fun and recycles crayons that then can be used for leaf texture rubbings.
Have the kids peel of the paper wrappers off the old crayons and group them by colors into an old muffin tin. The colors can be grouped into combinations, too, like red and orange, or blue and purple, etc… Make sure the muffin tin is old or replaceable because once you use it for this crayon project it becomes an art muffin tin. Now preheat the oven to 275 open some windows for ventilation. Put the crayon filled muffin tins into the oven and let them melt. Once the surface of the crayons becomes flat (about ten minutes) very carefully remove the muffin tin from the oven and place them in the refrigerator. Be careful not to jiggle the colors, because part of the cool effect is to have the crayon colors melted together but not mixed into one color.
While the crayons are cooling gather some interesting fall leaves from outside. This could even be a trip to the park. Then get some white paper, construction paper or printer paper is great. Then mix some oil paint to spread over the paper after the crayon leaf rubbings are done. Use two tablespoons of vegetable oil and six to eight drops of food coloring. Mix until the food color evenly disperses in the oil. Have fun mixing colors too. Try mixing red and blue or blue and yellow to see what colors you can make.
Once the crayons are cool and hard pop them out of the muffin tin. Place the leaves under the paper on a hard surface and holding the paper still rub the big round crayons over the paper. Look at the leaf vein textures and the colors the crayons make. Next with a paint brush, spread the oil paint over the paper. Then rub it in with hands or paper towel. Do this on top of newspaper/butcher paper or an old table. The oil will saturate the paper creating a vellum look. These are beautiful hung in the window or can be mounted on colored paper. Use them to make fall cards by cutting them down and pasting them to premade blank greeting cards.
It’s all about the fun! Please enjoy!
Miss Tina
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