Easter Holidays

Lots of activity on the reserve this holiday! ( This scene of tranquillity is a “before” picture ).

The arty bits were held in the barn; which was NOT COLD and filled with the scent of blossom! Yippee.

There were workshops and the middle “ drop-in” event, which was another “spin into spring” day ( as last years was such a success ). Simple pompom creatures were made into bunnies and springy chicks.

There were demonstrations of knitting, crochet, and drop spindle spinning. Sadly I was so busy I didn’t get any pictures 😦 that day. If anyone did take pictures I’ll add some later. Between us we managed to teach the basics of spinning, knitting and crochet to quite a few people, including children; boys as well as girls.

We made all sorts of Easter bunny and chick things, in the workshop sessions.
There lots of bunny characters made from painted “dolly” pegs; some had chenille arms

and some had “crocheted chain” arms I made as we went along…

Yes, I am a glutton for punishment! But actually it was another way to demo some crochet to the uninitiated; and was an extra bit of fun. I think I will include this in my peg doll tutorial as it saves using pipe cleaners with little ones.

Just look at this funny, sweet couple!

We also created some Easter trees made with network wire and crepe paper – These are easy and very effective; if anyone wants a tutorial leave me a comment and I’ll send one. (The PDF is going to end up in the shop as well.)

Many of them had a sort of post psychedelic, magic roundaboutish, vibe!

Some had bunny visitors

and some had nests

and amazing illustrations of woodland dwellers added ( look at the base of this one carefully ! )

I loved this cheeky fox especially! He was peeping out from under a more natural tree. His creator was more of a wildlife purist than some of our younger craftspeople.

We also made felted eggs, from some wool of the Jacob sheep on site! The coloured wisps were extra bits- we didn’t dip dye the sheep!

These took longer than anticipated, and were very wet and messy, but everyone did have a go with a great deal of soapy relish.

Then there were baskets to take it all home in!

What sweet scenes on this one!

The owner managed to sort out these shapes out from a mixture of flowery ones left over from another event! Such a patience and a delicate touch.

Plus of course paper bunnies (morphed from the hares) and lots of marbled egg cards ! ( The marbling was also messy ! )

A lovely, sunny, good old fashioned day out.

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Oh poor blog!

Oh poor blog! I keep neglecting you! Just time for a quick update on the last event before the next lot in half term!
Wetland’s day was just that –wet! Well more like damp and cold than wet; it was so cold that the wetness couldn’t even work up the energy to be – wet! It just clung to everything in a slick of frigid dampness. I’m amazed anyone could bear to come out in it!
Even so we did have quite a few brave souls turn up- but nothing like our usual numbers, which was a shame as we had fun things to do.
We had a migration theme but also some simple wetland “plate ponds” for little ones.
They enjoyed making these before, with some more elaborate 3D versions

So to give it a bit of a change I made some plaster of Paris fish to paint (courtesy of an IKEA ice cube tray) to add to those.

Much enjoyed, even if they were completely out of scale, so rather shark like!

For the migration stuff we had maps to complete and a folded paper “migration suitcase” that the appropriate birds tumbled from, in a sort of mobile.
Some guys made a real effort to use the books and pictures to get accurate colouring. This one took ages of much consultation of books and careful colouring .

One young man had a back story going on for his carefully selected birds; here he was telling me their names, and which was bigger ( and therefore older!) .

On The whole it seemed to get the message across- but as pleasant as it was we were all pleased to get back home in the warm afterwards.

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