How to make Miniature tools for your Zen Garden.

I promised to show you how we made our Zen Garden tools.

We needed our trusty glue gun, our garden scissors, some sticks and twigs, an acorn cap and a shell.

First, the rake. I used my garden scissors to cut a twig for the handle, a smaller twig for the rakes head and 5 tiny twigs for the rakes teeth.

With my glue gun, I stuck the head of the rake to the handle...

Then I stuck the 5 teeth to the head and...

Voila! The rake was complete.

Then for the acorn scooper...
I used my good 'ol glue gun to stick the acorn head to the stick handle... Now this must be the cutest little Zen Garden tool ever! It scoops sand wonderfully and makes lovely moon shapes in the sand scape.

Now for the shell spade...

My friend the glue gun once again did his magic by sticking the shell to the driftwood handle.

Zen, isn't it?!
So here they are, the twig rake, the acorn scooper and the shell spade. All have been played with endlessly in our Miniature Zen Garden which you can see here.

Blessings and magic.

How to make a Miniature Zen Garden.

Yesterday we thought about the wisdom of ancient Tibet when we painted a lovely rainbow with our colorful sand.

Today, we talked about Buddhism as we made a miniature Zen Garden.

We learnt that a Zen Garden is a place of meditation and we experienced how calming it is to work with sand... to rake it, let it run through our fingers, watch it change shape as we move it with our hands.

This is what we needed to make our Miniature Zen Garden...

A glass, wooden our metal container

A spoon

Sand (we used some of the beach sand that we colored the other day)

And Zen treasures, we decided upon pretty rocks and earth-colored marbles.

We put the sand in the dish. The green and purple sand mixed together to make a lovely pink. We used the spoon to make the sand level.

We took our little rake and made a spiral marking in the sand. We positioned our Zen treasures in our Miniature Zen Garden, making use of the spiral markings to maximize our gardens aesthetic appeal. We placed and removed our treasures many times until we thought it looked just right.
Mr T was very impressed!
And then we played in it... for a very long time... raking, placing treasures... covering treasures, making markings in the sand... arranging treasures again. We 'meditated a lot!'
Can you believe that we made the Zen Garden Tools too? You won't believe how easy they are! Have a look at the link above to see how we made them.

Blessings and magic.

Painting With Colored Sand.

One of my very favorite movies is Kundun. Watching it is a magical experience from beginning to end. I vividly remember the very first time I saw it... it opens with the Tibetan Monks painting with sand. They work for hours making the most beautiful image from colored sand. It's huge, covering the entire floor... spirals, waves, twirls, blues, greens, yellows. It is a magnificent sight... and then, when it is finally finished, they open the huge wooden doors of the temple and let the wind sweep over the colorful floor, blowing their magnificent labors away. At first it is a terrible shock that all their work was for nothing, swept away, gone! But then you get a glimmer of the wisdom that is Tibet... that it is not the creation that is important but the creating. It is profound! Such a valuable lesson for all of us.

Last week we made wonderful colored sand. It was a fun, colorful activity... click on the link above if you missed how it is made.

Today we painted with our colored sand. We used the sand we colored last week, a glass dish a spoon, a funnel and a straw

.

We made our own sand dispenser by inserting our straw into the funnel. It was a little long for K to manage comfortably so we cut it to the right length.

We poured our yellow sand into the glass dish and K spread it evenly.
With a little shake of the glass dish from me, the sand was even and ready to be painted on.
K decided she wanted to create a rainbow. She drew a faint outline in the sand to guide her.
We filled up the funnel with purple sand, keeping a finger on the bottom of the straw to keep the sand in it.
Then K positioned the funnel over where she wanted the purple sand to go, removed her finger from the bottom of the straw and let the sand fall from it in the shape of her rainbow.
It was very exciting to finally let the sand drop from the funnel and we giggled with abandon.
Then the blue rainbow arc.
The pink.
Finally, the green.Isn't it pretty?

Of course, our rainbow needed some embellishment so K used a little stick to run the colors into each other.

Isn't it even more beautiful?!
But, alas, when I suggested we let Little Brother play in it (a simulation of the Tibetan winds) a loud cry of protest could be heard for miles around! Needless to say, it is sitting on our table now for all to admire.

Blessings and magic.

Silent Saturday.

Mr T has a new love.

Blessings and magic.

Friday's Nature Table.

Welcome to Friday's Nature Table, a forum for us to share the nature inspired things we have done with our children... our nature ideas, crafts, activities, inspirations and photos. Nature is all around us... her magic is everywhere!

I encourage everyone to participate, the more wonderful ideas we can share about how to enjoy our beautiful earth, the happier we will be. And thanks to everyone for their inspiring posts from last Friday! I love reading each and every one.

Enjoy! and thank you for sharing today...

Blessings and magic.

How to make Colored Sand.

Mr T insisted on bringing home a bucket of sand from the beach. Unlike me, he loves sand so much and can play with it for hours. He really doesn't mind if it gets in his hair, his clothes, his bed!

So, to enthuse with this love, we decided to make colored sand.

This is what we needed;

a bucket of sand

a sieve

6 large Ziploc bags

6 colors of foodcoloring

spoons

paper towels

water

We made little bowls from the Ziplock bags like this...

We set our sieve in the Ziploc bowl and filled it with sand.

As the sand was from the beach, it was full of small shells that we wanted to separate from the sand. T loves to sift stuff. He took this job very seriously and meticulously sifted all the shells from the clean sand.

We arranged the sand-filled bags on the grass as the next step is to add the food coloring. We wanted to make sure that a mistake did not mean a permanently colored patio!

Granny helped Mr T wet the sand with water from a jug.
We added enough water to make the sand soggy. Too much water will make it hard for the sand to absorb the food coloring.

K joined us for the fun task of adding color to our soggy sand. We added food coloring liberally.

Then we zipped up the bags and massaged the color into the sand. K loved the tactile nature of massaging the sand through the bag. It was cool and squishy and made a wonderful scrunching noise if you listened carefully.

We added different colors to our bags of sand and then laid them flat for 30 minutes to let the sand absorb the color.

Then we turned each bag out onto a couple of sheets of strong paper towels to dry in the sand.

It dried in a day. Tomorrow we are going to use our colored sand to make something fun... stay tuned!
Blessings and magic.

Friday's Nature Table.

Welcome to Friday's Nature Table, a forum for us to share the nature inspired things we have done with our children... our nature ideas, crafts, activities, inspirations and photos. Nature is all around us and her magic is everywhere!

I encourage everyone to participate, the more wonderful ideas we can share about how to enjoy our beautiful earth, the happier we will be. And thanks to everyone for their inspiring posts from last Friday!

Enjoy! and thank you for sharing today...

Blessings and magic

How to make an Arbor for your Fairy Garden.

Today we made an arbor for K's Fairy Garden.

This is what we used to make it... strong but bendable wire, thin very bendable wire, my pliers and some paper roses for decoration.

I cut two pieces of the strong wire using my pliers, about 15 inches each. I bended the two pieces of wire into U shapes. Be sure to file the ends of all the wire so that it can't poke any precious little hands.

I used the thin wire to connect the two U's. I wisted it many times around the first U and then the other. The gap between the two U's was about 1 inch.
I continued this process up the wire...

Until the arbor frame was complete.

Then K added the roses to make it look beautiful and rushed out to her Fairy Garden to put it into its place.

She announced a little later that, in the morning, there is going to be a royal wedding and a fairy and a prince are going to get married under the 'magnificent' arbor... I can't wait to see!

Here are the other posts in the Fairy Garden Series,

The Magical Fairy or Gnome Garden Challenge and Giveaway.

How to make a Fairy or Gnome Garden.

How to make Fairy Furniture... a table and a chair.

How to make a Fairy's Bed.

How to make a Fairy's Bath.

How to make a Swing for a Fairy Garden.

How to make a Fairy's Washing Line.

How to make Easy Peg Fairies.

Take a look at the newest entry into The Magical Fairy or Gnome Garden Challenge and Giveaway. I can't tell you how much excitement your Fairy Gardens arouse in my house... we pour over each new creation in wonder! Thank you and keep them coming in!

Blessings and magic.