About two years ago, I found instructions for making beautiful Christmas tree ornaments by imprinting natural objects on air-dry clay, then lightly washing the imprints with paint. The examples looked just beautiful, so I thought we'd give it a try. I even brought a tub of air-dry clay to Maine; I thought sea shells and ferns were obvious natural objects for making beautiful imprints.
This ended up being one of those projects where mom has to drop all expectations. The kids did choose mussel and clam shells, but they mostly chose periwinkle shells, which don't so much imprint as gouge. Didn't slow the girls down a bit and we ended up with lots of clay lumps (sorry, girls, that's the nicest way old mom can think of to describe them).
Then the clay lumps languished in the kitchen for about a year and a half. We just didn't get around to painting them, until this December.
I really did admire the care the girls put into painting their ornaments. Instead of washing them with thin paint, they just went ahead and painted them with regular paint. Frances even painted scenes on the inside of her clam shell imprints.
In the end, I thought they fit in perfectly with our mostly DIY collection of Christmas tree ornaments.
And I may try this project again, when both girls are over ten and I've...mellowed a bit more.
No comments:
Post a Comment