Families Go Wild Summer Crafts!

Today we took the opportunity to enjoy the colours of nature! We started off by admiring the colours of the artichoke flowers on the farm.

We walked through the gardens and we decided it was a good opportunity to water the plants we planted last week. It wasn’t too hot or sunny, so the water wouldn’t dry up quickly.

Once we had watered our section of the garden, we set out to find different leaves and flowers. We wanted to find a range of shapes and colours, so we could use them for our craft project! Once we started looking, we found so many different plants around the farm, with interesting shaped leaves and beautifully coloured flowers. We even found some berries to experiment with!

Our craft project was to bash the natural materials we found between sheets of paper, to release their pigments onto the paper and create patterns and art! For the project we were going to use hammers, so before we started we had a conversation about how we should use the tools and how to be responsible with them. We agreed that they were not to be played with, but to be used correctly, otherwise we would put them away.

We experimented with different textures of materials, realising that the colours came out better if the leaves and flowers were not too thick and full of water, and not too dry. We also worked out that flatter faced flowers worked better than those with a more 3D shape. Ripe blackberries splattered really well, and made a beautiful colour. We noticed when we used the leaves of herbs, their scent was released as well as their pigment!

We enjoyed using our hammers to make a noise and bash the leaves, flowers and berries! Some visitors to the farm wondered what we were doing, and had never seen people doing it before. They were impressed with our artwork!

Creating masterpieces is thirsty work! Once we had finished our nature inspired art, we went to harvest some mint to make minty water. One of our volunteers suggested that we water the mint, as a thank you for harvesting it, which we thought was a great idea. We harvested the mint and muddled it with some sugar, which helped to break down the leaves and release their flavour. We then added hot water to for the mint to infuse, and cold after that, as we wanted a stronger tasting, but cold drink. It took a while, but we were all very grateful for the tasty drink in the end!