"We do not inherit the earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children."
- Wendell Berry
I think we all agree that Earth Day should really be every day, even though tomorrow is the official day. I am very grateful to be raising two righteous, nature-loving, earth-protecting girls. The other day we were on our way to school when we noticed our neighborhood "Bee Tree" (as we call it) had been filled with foam. There were hundreds of dead bees oozing out of the tree and the girls and I were horrified. R is a budding scientist so the impact of this bee massacre really shook her. She felt compelled to say something so she wrote a letter to our neighbors:
Proud Mom.
Here are 5 ways to celebrate Earth Day in addition to art making:
1. Skip the car. Walk, bike, or use public transit.
2. Skip the meat. Even eating a vegetarian diet 1x per week reduces the impact of climate change, rain forest destruction, pollution, and greenhouse gas emission.
3. BYO drink and food containers and shopping bags.
4. Donate:
Wildlife Conservation Network
Sierra Club
The World Land Trust
Environmental Defense Fund
Earth Justice
5. Go paperless. Set up online bill pay for all your accounts.
We are big fans of using recycled materials in our art making. If you are looking for some great up-cycled art projects here are some really fun ones that you can find on our site:
Penguins, Egg Carton Wreath, Jelly Fish, Cardboard House, Cardboard Bird and Cars
Every good celebration calls for some pomp and flair and Earth Day is no exception.
Bring on the Muffin Tin Print... Urfs (as H calls them).
Materials:
PRINTS
- metal muffin tin
- acrylic or tempera paint (turquoise, spring green, yellow, cobalt blue) + paint brush
- thick white paper
GARLAND
- rainbow string
- wooden beads
- hot glue gun
- scissors
NECKLACE
- turquoise bendy wire
- wooden beads
- hot glue gun
Step 1: Grab your muffin tin, a paint palette, a water cup, a brush, and some paint. We used Turquoise, Cobalt, Mint, Sprint Green, Bright Yellow, and Orangey Yellow.
Step 2: Mix your color and paint the the backs of your muffin tins. They should look like little abstract globes.
Step 3: Print! Take a large piece of thick white paper and place it on top of your painted tin bottoms and disperse pressure evenly across your circle shapes with the palm of your hand. Or you can flip your muffin tin over and stamp your paper. We got the best prints by using the first press and palm method but you can try both and see what you think.
Step 4: Set your pretty little earth prints out to dry for 20-30 minutes.
Step 5: Once your prints are dry, you can start to cut them out.
We attached our globes to some rainbow string with hot glue and added some wooden beads to make a sweet little Earth Day garland.
R with her Earth Day garland.
We added a single earth print and a few wooden beads to a turquoise bendy wire. It makes a pretty simple and stunning Earth Day necklace, don't you think? If you don't have coated bendy wire or jewelry wire you can use embroidery thread or cord.
Happy Earth Day!
xx
A & co.
