How To Field Cast Animal Tracks, Because If You Don't Field Cast Animal Tracks Are You Even a Homeschooler?

 

I originally published this tutorial over at Crafting a Green World.

Have you ever been hiking and come across a really cool animal track? Maybe you don’t know what animal made it, or maybe you do know, but the track is just so perfect that you wish you could bundle it up and take it home to admire? Maybe you’ve got a kid who loves animals and nature, who could use a little hands-on science enrichment?

You need to know how to field cast.

Field casting is easy, requiring just plaster of Paris, used cardboard food packaging, masking tape, and water. It won’t take a ton of time away from your hike, and it’ll leave you with a great memory and a useful piece of scientific evidence for studying the real animals who’ve walked your path.

Here’s how:

1. Find an animal track. We’ve chosen to hike in the woods behind our house the day after a big rainfall, and my ten-year-old finds just what we’d expect to find: deer tracks!

2. Make a cardboard collar around the track. Cut strips of the cardboard food packaging about 1″ wide and long enough to completely encircle the track; tape pieces together with masking tape to lengthen them if necessary.

Tape the two ends together into a collar that will circle the track.

3. Mix the plaster of Paris. Although there are specific ratios of plaster to water that will guarantee a standard result (and I used to do all our field casting that way), I went on a dino dig earlier this summer and learned there how to simply eyeball my plaster mixture. In a throwaway plastic cup that’s at the end of its life, dump some dry plaster, then add some water and stir with a stick. You’re looking for a pudding consistency, better thin than thick, so continue to gradually add plaster or water to reach this approximate consistency.

4. Pour into the animal track. We always need two people for this, one person to steady the collar and one person to actually pour.

The thinner the consistency of the plaster of Paris is, the better it will fill the animal track without bubbles, but the longer it will take to cure–use your own judgment about how much free time you have to kill making field casts on your hike.

5. Remove the cast. When the plaster is firm to the touch, you can remove the cast and clean up your work.

The field cast will be dirty, but you can rinse it, and then label or paint it.

If you’d like to hang the field cast on your wall later (we do this sometimes), unbend a paperclip into a hook, then embed it in the plaster after you’ve poured it.

If you’ve got an extra-savvy kid who needs a science fair project, have them see what information they can learn about an animal based solely on its track. Height? Weight? Age?

This is also a great technique to employ if you happen to come across an animal track that you can’t identify. You might come up with the first conclusive evidence of the elusive Sasquatch, or the wily chupacabra!

Actually… I have a story about the chupacabra. Buy me a margarita sometime, and I’ll tell you all about it.

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Cinnamon Dough is THE Most Delightful Winter Craft!

 

If you want a winter pick-me-up (AND a way to finish up all that ground cinnamon you bought for holiday baking), you will be delighted with cinnamon dough.

Cinnamon dough smells amazing. It’s as easy to make and use as play dough. It dries to near-permanence with just a couple of hours in the oven. It’s been my favorite winter activity to do with my kids ever since they were tiny.

Here’s all you need to make your own batch of cinnamon dough:

• one cup of cinnamon. Yes, one CUP!!! This project is made for those people (*cough, cough* it me *cough*) who overbuy the giant spice container every winter out of a fear of somehow running out during holiday baking. The struggle IS real, though: one year I 100% found myself Googling “DIY powdered sugar” at 9pm on Christmas Eve, and I never want to relive that experience.
• up to 5 tsp aromatic spices. I like to put in those spices that I know I’m not going to use before they expire (I’m looking at you, Allspice! And YOU, Ground Cloves!).
• .5 to 1 cup applesauce. Choose the cheapest store-brand sugar-free applesauce for this, although I won’t judge you if you find yourself panic-emptying a couple of pouches because you simply cannot go back to the freaking grocery store one more time today. Once upon a time, I made my kids a batch of play dough using organic flour because that’s what I had on hand. It wasn’t my finest moment, but I DID get to stay in my jammy pants!
• cookie sheet.

Step 1: Mix all ingredients.

Add all the dry ingredients to a bowl, then stir to combine.

Starting with 1/2 cup applesauce, mix/knead the applesauce into the other ingredients in batches. I’ve never figured out exactly why my cinnamon dough requires a slightly different amount of applesauce every year–is it the humidity? The age/variety of spices? It’s not the applesauce itself, because I always use that exact kind in the photo–but indeed, I make this cinnamon dough every single winter, and every single winter I have to play the exact amount of applesauce by ear.

You’re looking for a consistency like any other dough in your life–not crumbly, not sticky. If you’re working with younger kids, err on the side of making the dough a little wet and sticky, because a crumbly dough that doesn’t hold together with ease is almost immediately frustrating to little kids.

And yes, I’m sorry, but you will have to get your hands into it. It’s dough! If it’s any consolation, though, cinnamon is pretty nice for your skin!

Step 2: Decorate!

You can sculpt with this cinnamon dough just like you would with any dough, but my family’s favorite way to enjoy it has always been to get out the cookie cutters and make ornaments and garlands.

To make your own cinnamon dough ornaments, roll the dough no thicker than 1/4″, then cut with cookie cutters. Make a small hole for stringing onto a garland using the tip of a chopstick, or a larger hole for attaching an ornament hanger using a straw.

If you’re making a fiddly design, you can roll the dough directly onto parchment paper, then move your design, parchment paper and all, onto the cookie sheet for baking.

Just beware of trying to work with the dough when it’s cold from the refrigerator. It’s fine to store the dough in the fridge for a couple of weeks, but it will cooperate a LOT better at room temperature.

Step 3: Bake.

While you’re working with the dough, preheat the oven to around 200 degrees (depending on my oven’s capabilities over the years, I’ve used temps anywhere between 200-250 degrees with similar results. One of these days, I’ll even get around to experimenting with my dehydrator!).

This dough won’t expand, so don’t worry about placement; just set them onto an ungreased cookie sheet and set the time for an hour.

After one hour, I like to check on my ornaments and flip them. See in the above photo how the centers of the larger ornaments that I just flipped over are darker? That’s the bottom middle that hasn’t dried yet, so flipping them over and putting them back in the oven lets them dry out evenly.

After a couple of hours, the ornaments should start to be ready, depending on how big they are. I start to check on them about every 20 minutes, removing the ones that are bone-dry whenever I check. I don’t really enjoy a lot of hands-on kitchen stuff, so I’m always VERY excited when that last ornament is dry and I can finally turn the oven off!

Step 4: Attach ornament hangers.

This year, my teenager and I combined these cinnamon dough ornaments with dried grapefruit slices to make some lovely (and lovely-smelling!) winter garlands that we hope to keep on display through February.

I tied loops of embroidery floss through the holes on the other ornaments, and we put them right onto our tree.

With careful storage, these cinnamon dough ornaments should last for multiple years. A couple of years ago, after probably a decade of making them yearly and storing the survivors (it’s hard to be a Christmas tree ornament in this house!) with our other ornaments in the garage during the off-seasons, all of our cinnamon dough ornaments came out of storage a little moldy. They must have gotten damp or come into contact with something that ruined them, but it remains a mystery!

But whether you try to store them (I think I *will* try again this year!) or simply compost them in the Spring, or even just enjoy the dough as a process-oriented sensory experience and don’t keep them at all, I think this cinnamon dough will be a delightful addition to your winter craft projects!

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How to Make Dried Citrus Slices for Ornaments and Garlands

 

I first posted this tutorial on Crafting a Green World.

This winter, let just a little more sunshine into your home with dried citrus slices turned into ornaments and garlands.

I’m happy to admit that I decorate the absolute snot out of my house for Christmas. It is not tasteful at ALL, and I LOVE it.

What I love even more, though, are the decorations that I don’t have to make myself take down on January 2. The tinsel and the twinkle lights and the tree and the four hundred nutcrackers and the paper stars all have to go, even though it makes me 100% sad to put them away.

It’s a good thing, then, that I have convinced myself that my decorations that are “winter” themed, rather than purely for Christmas, get to stay up through February! The paper snowflakes get to stay. The gnomes get to stay. And all the citrus and cinnamon dough garlands get to stay, smelling sweet and looking lovely, until I finally take them down to make room for all the spring gardening stuff I’m starting to drag out.

These dried citrus slices are easy to make during a cozy half-day at home, and easy to string to make ornaments, garlands, and other holiday decorations. Here’s how!

To make dried citrus slices, you will need:

• citrus fruits. I’ve successfully dried naval oranges and grapefruits (in this tutorial, I’m drying grapefruit!). Any citrus fruit in which the peel clings to the fruit should work, but I doubt that a fruit like easy-peeling clementines would.
• sharp knife or mandolin. The thinner the better for these dried citrus slices! I hand-cut my grapefruit slices and caused myself some extra annoyance since they were so thick that they took ages to dry, but dry they did, so don’t worry if your knife skills are as ham-handed as mine are.
• oven set to 200 degrees or dehydrator. The dehydrator takes longer and is noisier, but it uses less energy and leaves your oven free.

Step 1: Slice your citrus fruit more evenly than I did!

Although apparently, you can just hack away at them like I did and that works okay, too!

Set aside the ends that are mostly peel, ideally tossing them into your garden to do a little natural composting before spring.

If I’m too lazy to even take my end bits out into the garden (sometimes it’s dark out there! Or, even worse, precipitating!!!), I like to put them down the garbage disposal for a little natural deodorizing.

Step 2: Dry or dehydrate.

Either put your slices on sheet pans into a 200-degree oven or arrange them, as pictured above, in your 15-year-old Nesco dehydrator. I used to use this dehydrator allllll the time when my kids were little, making them dehydrated fruit slices and fruit leather and flaxseed crackers and such, but these days I only pull it out to dry herbs and make decorations like these. 

Your citrus slices will take 2-3 hours to dry out in the oven. In the dehydrator, they’ll take more like 8-10 hours, but again, your oven will be free to bake cookies! Make your own choice depending on your own priorities, but as for me, *I* like cookies!

After a couple of hours in the oven or six hours in the dehydrator, check on the citrus slices, and remove any that look completely dried. I had to keep doing this, because, again, I cut my grapefruit slices as unevenly as it is possible to cut them. You, with your better knife skills, will only need to keep an eye out for the end pieces with the smaller diameters, as those will likely be dried before the middle pieces.

Step 3: Decorate!

This is the fun part!

My teenager and I made both ornaments and garlands with these dried citrus slices. To make the garlands, we interspersed the grapefruit slices with cinnamon dough cutouts (stay tuned for that recipe next week!), but to make the ornaments, we used just a blunt tapestry needle and some embroidery floss. Thread the needle, then pull it through the slice near the top. Pull it back through the same spot, then take the needle off the floss. Tie the two ends of floss together to make a loop, then put one end of the loop through the other to make a nice ornament hanger.

These dried citrus slices look lovely on a Christmas tree or in a garland across your window, sure, but don’t sleep on all the other pretty ways to use them. Hang them outside, display them in a bowl on the coffee table, wire them into a wreath, tie them into a gift topper, or do any one of a hundred more cute things.

Also feel free to experiment with other types of citrus. I like orange for my own winter decorating, but there’s no rule saying that you can’t jazz up your decor with the yellow and green of lemons and limes, or the dark red of blood oranges.

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How to Dye Pasta to Make Sensory Materials

Pretty much the last family activity that we did before taking the kids to college was an evening of making sensory materials together.

You know, as you do!

I'd had the idea that my preschool niece might like some of the same homemade sensory materials that my own kids had enjoyed at her age. We made her slime (although my kids actually played with oobleck, not slime, throughout their preschool years, you might remember that my younger kid went through a BIG slime phase as a tween and still has the recipe memorized), play dough, sand dough, cloud dough, dyed Epsom salts, and a couple of colors of this dyed pasta.

Out of all of those options, the pasta is the easiest! It takes just a few minutes of hands-on time, spread out over the course of a full day. Here's how to make it:

Materials

To make this sensory material, you will need:

• dry pasta. The pasta that you use is limited only by your imagination, your budget, and the size of the jar you plan to use. Rotini and elbow macaroni were perennial favorites with my kids, but bowties and shells also turn out exceptionally cute. Star pasta is a splurge but would be adorable, and spaghetti would be cool-looking but unwieldy to dye and delicate when finished.
• liquid food coloring or liquid watercolors. I use the snot out of our liquid watercolors, and used them for this particular project, but before I knew such a thing existed I made many fine and colorful batches of dyed pasta with cheap liquid food coloring. 
• old jars. I've always used glass jars, as in old spaghetti sauce or salsa jars, and never plastic, but I don't see why plastic wouldn't work.
• rubbing alcohol. You need this because it's a non-water-based solvent that can distribute the dye without dissolving the pasta. Some of my hippier friends buy super-high-proof organic vodka to make their own disinfectants, though, so if you like, I bet you can use that!
• newspaper, brown paper bags, cardboard, etc. You want something to spread the pasta out on to dry, ideally something you can toss in the recycling bin when you're done.

How to Dye the Dried Pasta

Pour dried pasta into a jar, filling it no more than halfway. Check out this old photo I found of my adorable older darling completing this step. She looks like she might be five?

Five was a really great age for that kid. Actually, though, twenty is turning out to also be a great year for her!

Add enough rubbing alcohol to just cover the bottom of the jar, then add the dye. Put the lid on and shake it around until the dye is evenly distributed, then add more dye as desired until the pasta looks about as saturated as you want it to be.

Here's the part you have to remember: put the jars on a table or counter you frequently walk by, and then for the rest of the day, every time you pass the jars, agitate them and shake them around for a few seconds to further distribute the dye and unstick any pasta bits.

After a few hours of that, dump out the jas and spread the pasta out in an even layer on your blotting paper:

Leave the pasta to finish drying out at least overnight, or even as long as a full day:

Your blotting paper gets pretty messy, so that's why you want something you can toss!

When the pasta has finished drying, kids can play with it right away, or you can store it in deli containers at room temperature. Look how cute it looks combined with all the other sensory materials in my niece's present stash!

Kids can simply play with this pasta, of course, but it also makes a great addition to a play kitchen or mud kitchen, or to a pretend construction site. Dump trucks love to drive around pink elbow pasta! 

And, of course, you can do art with it, especially making mosaics with different types and colors of pastas. You know you want your own pasta mosaic masterpiece hung on your wall!

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Beach Craft: Make a Sandy Handprint Keepsake

I originally posted this tutorial on Crafting a Green World way back in 2019, but we first did this craft in 2012 during a vacation to Cape Cod. I JUST told my older kid that we lied about the day of her birthday on this trip, so that she wouldn't be sad that all we did was drive across the country the day she turned six. Instead, we went to Plymouth, played on the beach, and ate candy for dinner!

The beach is one vacation spot that ensures that you come away with beautiful souvenirs.

A handful of sand, the choicest of clam shells, rocks worn smooth by the waves, as much driftwood as your trunk will hold- any of these free natural objects make for timeless, treasured souvenirs.

But how can you record something just as precious, but just the opposite of timeless? How can you take home and treasure something as ephemeral as a footprint in the sand, or the smallness of your child’s hand the day that she first saw the Atlantic Ocean?

My kids and I have been very into plaster of Paris projects this summer. It turns out that plaster of Paris forms just as well in an easy mold of beach sand, one that you can create right on the beach, and it mixes just as well with sea water as it does tap water, and it leaves on the surface of your print a fine layer of embedded sand, perfect for recording a special trip to the ocean.

Tools & Supplies

You will need:

• Plaster of Paris: One-and-a-half cups of plaster of Paris is enough for four handprints of a small child, two footprints of a small child, one child’s handprint and one adult’s handprint, or one adult’s footprint.
• Resealable plastic bag that’s at the end of its useful life. This is a good project to finish off the bag from yesterday’s lunch, or the bag that your deli cheese came in, or the bag that the treat came home in from the last birthday party that your child went to. Plastic bags, when used sparingly and only when they’re really useful, will help you do this project neatly and efficiently and with as little trash as possible.
• Measuring cup
• Watertight pail

Directions

1. Measure Out Your Plaster

Before you go to the beach, measure out the appropriate amount of plaster of Paris and put it into a resealable plastic bag. Read the directions on your container of plaster to be sure, but generally, the ratio is 1:1.5, water to plaster of Paris. Sometimes I write how much water I’ll need to add directly onto my bag- otherwise, I tend to reverse the ratio and ruin my batch.

2. Pack Up Your Beach Bag

When you pack for the beach, bring that bag of plaster of Paris, a measuring cup for adding the seawater, and a pail for toting the water.

3. Find a Clean Spot in the Sand

At the beach, find a spot of clean sand. For a handprint or footprint, you’ll want to use somewhat damp sand, like what you get below the high tide line. This sand will hold an impression the best and make the clearest, sharpest mold.

If your little child is having trouble making a firm impression into the damp sand, till it up and smooth it back down to make it easier to shift.

4. Make the Impression

Put a hand or foot firmly down into the sand, then lift it straight back up. You want a relatively deep impression here, or your finished mold will be very thin. You will likely need to gently but firmly press down on a child’s hand or foot to help him or her make a deeper impression than they have the strength to do on their own.

Alternately, you can also dig and draw into the sand to make your own artistic mold.

5. Mix the Plaster and Seawater

Carry up some seawater in your pail, then add the appropriate amount of seawater to the plaster in your bag and seal it closed. Knead and agitate the plastic bag until the plaster is completely mixed. This is even easier than mixing your plaster in a bowl, since you can easily feel if there are any lumps remaining in your bag.

6. Pour the Plaster Into the Sand Molds

Open one end of the plastic bag, then pour the plaster to fill all your molds.

7. Let it Harden

Use the directions that came with your plaster to determine how long you should wait before you unmold your handprint. Depending on the temperature of the sand, you may have to wait longer than the directions indicate before your plaster has cured.

8. Remove Your Print

Gently excavate your print, give it a quick rinse in the ocean, and you’re done!

Now you have your beach sand souvenir and a keepsake for the grandparents, as well.

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You Should Take Pumpkinhead Photos

This tutorial was originally published on Crafting a Green World in 2022!

It's unwieldy, unbalanced, and will definitely put a crick in your neck, but it's so worth it! 

This photo shoot with Jack-o-lanterns on our heads is one of the funnest Halloween activities I've done yet in my life. And I used to get paid actual cash money to work in a haunted house and scare the snot out of people! 

And happily enough, this pumpkinhead photo shoot is also one of the most eco-friendly Halloween activities! You don't need any single-serve candy with assorted wrappers. There are no costume components to source. No plastic, no face paint. All that's required is a fresh pumpkin from a local farm, your favorite comfy fall clothes, and a lovely natural space, ideally with deciduous trees in the process of transitioning.  Here are all the components for the perfect pumpkinhead photo shoot:

• fresh, whole carving pumpkin. You have to go pretty big with these, so I found a place that was selling them per pumpkin, not per pound. I can eyeball it better now, but the first time I took my teenager with me and held pumpkins up to her head to make sure I wasn't buying one that was too small. The trick is to find a pumpkin tall enough that it can touch your shoulders. Too short, and not only will it slide around, but the top of your head will be taking the entire weight of the pumpkin, which is HEAVY!
• pumpkin carving tools. Yes, I use those cheap-looking mostly-plastic carving kits that all the big-box stores sell, but, um. Those pumpkin carving kits are the bomb! Not only are they easy to use and give super accurate results, but my family has been using the same cheap tools for probably over a decade by now. If you gave me one of these nice stainless steel and wood pumpkin carving sets, though, I wouldn't be sad...
• autumn apparel. Jeans, boots, and flannel shirts look suitably autumnal.
• head protection (optional). The Jack-o-lanterns really are quite heavy! To provide a little padding and avoid getting pumpkin guts on your hair, you can opt to wear a washable fuzzy beanie or a shower cap.
• wagon (optional). We walked down a local trail for a bit to find the perfect autumn scene for our photo shoot. A folding wagon made sure we didn't have to lug Jack-o-lanterns in our arms while we hiked!

Step 1: Carve your Jack-o-lantern!

Carve the opening in the pumpkin at the bottom, not the top. Make it just big enough for your head to fit.  

Scoop out all the guts, and reserve the pumpkin seeds to roast. 

Any simple face works well in a pumpkinhead photo shoot. I think that smiling faces are funnier and neutral faces are slightly creepy. I've found through trial and error that anything detailed that you might try to carve will just get lost amid all the other details in these photos. In this case, simpler is easiest AND best!

Step 2. Take a lot of photos!

Take the photos the same day that you carve the pumpkin. The only thing worse than standing around with a fresh pumpkin on your head is, well, standing around with a not-so-fresh pumpkin on your head! 

For the best results, your background should be fairly simple and autumnal, and have some depth. Fields always look good, and forests can look good if you can get a little distance from your pumpkin-headed subjects. Placing your pumpkinheads close to the camera in front of a flat vertical surface like a wall is likely going to make your photos, in turn, look flat and too posed.  

Pumpkinhead photos are awesome for people who are awkward in front of a camera lens, because they don't have to pose in any particularly cute way. They don't even have to smile! You can literally just stand there, arms hanging limply at your side, half-blinking with a weird expression on your face, and as long as you've got a Jack-o-lantern on your head, you'll look awesome.  

Certain posed photos can look especially funny, though. I searched Pinterest for family, couple, children's, and graduation photo shoots, and made a list of several to try. My partner and kid thought of more to include, as well, as we got into the groove. 

We did end up having to ditch all of our ideas that involved various dance poses or anything requiring good balance. Those heavy, wobbly Jack-o-lanterns play fast and loose with one's center of gravity!

Step 3: Edit photos to make them even spookier.

 

Your photos will look awesome as-is, but you can edit them to make them even more awesome. 

Adding grain or using a sepia filter makes the photos spookier, as does vignetting them. Play with the saturation and temperature to make the leaves and pumpkins pop. 

If you can use Photoshop, you have even more options to make your photos spooky and fun! My partner darkened the eyes and mouths of the Jack-o-lanterns, removed joggers from the background of some photos, and, as in the photo above, popped the head right off my teenager. That photo is my favorite! 

And when you're finished with your photoshoot, I actually think that having the opening at the bottom makes the pumpkin even better as a Jack-o-lantern on our porch. It's a win-win!