Encouraging my children's independence is VERY important to me. Not only is it easier for me to parent two small children who can pour their own milk and put on their own coats and carry their own balance bikes up and down the front porch stairs, but it's also a priority in my parenting that my girls see themselves as capable individuals who can handle challenges and perform the meaningful work of day-to-day living.
I do permit my children to cut with sharp knives (with supervision), but not to use them on something as thick and unwieldy as a pumpkin. Although there are around-the-house materials that make pumpkin carving an activity more appropriate for small children (subject for a later post), my girls' favorite Jack-o-lantern craft is something that we call pumpkin pounding.
Pumpkin pounding is a hands-on activity that uses real tools on a real pumpkin, and each of my girls was able to do it with help at age two, and independently by age three. The best part, however, is that in the end, depending on how enthusiastic a pounder your kid has been, you end up with a real, live Jack-o-lantern for sitting on the porch steps and popping a candle inside.
You will need:
field pumpkin that's not too round. You want to be able to sit it on its various sides, as well as its butt, and not have it roll all over creation.
hammer. You can lay out a variety of hammers for your kids to experience, but the best tool for them is one that's as light as possible but has the widest hammer head
nails. Again, lay out a variety to try out, but the best ones are as wide as possible with the widest head
knife and scraping tool and whatever else you'll need to cut the top of the Jack-o-lantern and scrape the insides
1. Set the pumpkin up in a space where kids have enough room to swing a hammer, and where they can get in the correct hammering position--a low table or the floor or a bench, etc.
Be prepared to leave the pumpkin in that space for a few days, to give the kids the chance to come back over and over to this activity independently.
2. Show your child how to press the tip of the nail into the pumpkin flesh until the nail is held there by itself. That's the safest way to hammer, but older children can also be taught how to gently tap the nail into place with their hammers.
For kids younger than three, you may need to set up a handful of nails like this for them to hammer.
3. Let your child hammer nails into the pumpkin.
Remind them not to hammer the pumpkin just for the heck of it, but pumpkins are extremely sturdy and surprisingly forgiving, and even though your kid will hit the pumpkin a LOT, and HARD, as they're aiming for that nail, it's not going to crack.
4. At about five years of age, your kid can also learn how to use the claw end of the hammer to lever the nails back out of the pumpkin when she's done hammering. Otherwise, you'll probably need to do this, so give her plenty of nails to work with before she needs your help.
5. The Jack-o-lantern will show best with as many nail holes as possible, so feel free to take a whack at the pumpkin yourself. It's amazingly cathartic.
6. When everyone is completely finished with the pounding (and this may take several days), cut off the top of the pumpkin, and scrape out the insides to finish it. Pop in a candle, and enjoy your pretty pumpkin.
My kids and I are, for some reason, inordinately fond of our autumn-themed craft projects. What are your favorites?
The putting away of childish things is progressing, but it is a LOT harder than I thought it would be. The existence of the kids' playroom has allowed me to ignore all the once-beloved but long-ignored toys that they possess, since they're all stored tidily on shelves and not in the way.
But with one teenager headed off to college very shortly, I've promised the other teenager that we can remodel the playroom into a private bedroom just for her. It's long overdue, since the kids have shared one small bedroom for their entire lives without (much) complaint, but even I admit that I can no longer expect two nearly-grown adult children to continue sharing their decade-old IKEA bunk bed in their single tiny bedroom during college breaks.
I want to shrink these children back down to ages four and six just for a few hours, just so we can play blocks again while listening to Amelia Bedelia books on tape.
Anyway, we've already handled picture books and toy animals--
--we organized the LEGOs back during the pandemic lockdown, around the time that Matt got rid of almost all of the Barbies and their stuff (and no, I still haven't started speaking to him again...), and a couple of weeks ago, with a present idea for my toddler niece in mind, I decided to take care of the blocks.
The kids have a vast, well-loved, much played with building block collection. They wouldn't even be embarrassed to tell you that they played with blocks well into their teenaged years, because blocks are freaking AWESOME. Included in our collection were lots of scraps and seconds, though, so, first I sorted through all the blocks to cull the ones that the kids had had fun playing with, but weren't worth saving. Then, Matt helped me wash the blocks that we were keeping--and WOW, was that water gross!
We put most of the squeaky-clean blocks into storage bins--and I even separated the marble run blocks from the building blocks, a chore I'd been wanting to do for the entire time we've owned the marble run and yet somehow never got to--but first each person in the family picked out several blocks for a very special project:
Matt and Will each painted a few blocks, but Syd and I got VERY invested in our individual block-painting visions and spent most of the weekend just like this:
I love how her blocks allow one to connect a line or continue a color in interesting ways.
I wanted to paint a set of triangles with a connecting rainbow on one side--
--and a complete color wheel on the other. Here's how that turned out!
I like how you can mix them up:
These are the ones that Matt and Will painted:
Obviously, we couldn't pack them up and mail them to our favorite toddler until we'd made sure that they work properly!
They work great!
Not gonna lie--I am VERY likely to dig some more building blocks out of storage so I can repeat this project, either for my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop or just for fun. It was QUITE satisfying, and I was left with the feeling that there's lots more to explore regarding block painting and pattern building.
Wooden building blocks are an heirloom-quality toy... IF you treat them correctly.
Which my children did not do!
For at least a full decade, I collected--and created!--wooden building blocks for my two children. For that same amount of time, my kids played HARD with their blocks. These kids built with them inside and outside, in the sand and snow and mud. They painted them and printed with them, mixed them into potions and put them into slime. They forgot them outside, spilled juice on them, and absolutely loved them dearly.
And it shows!
One of my teenagers is weeks from moving off to college. I'm helping the other prep their long-disused playroom into a new bedroom that she won't have to share with her sister during college breaks. This means that I've had to finally start confronting all of these childhood toys that are no longer played with. It's time to decide what the kids want to keep for posterity, what they want to donate, and what we might want to upcycle.
Regardless of what choices we make for my kids' HUGE stash of old wooden building blocks, they all still have to be cleaned and refurbished first. One can't simply toss blocks sticky with old slime into storage, or donate muddy blocks, or upcycle blocks stained with who-knows-what-please-don't-tell-me.
Perhaps you, too, have some old blocks that you'd like to make look new again. Perhaps you've obtained some blocks of uncertain provenance, and you want to make sure they're clean and safe to play with. Or perhaps you've bought some scraps or seconds that you want to ready for play.
Whichever it is, here's how to deep clean wooden building blocks and simple wooden toys. Here's how to refurbish them, and even how to polish them up so they look beautiful and fancy and like the high-quality heirlooms that they are.
To completely deep-clean and refurbish most wooden building blocks and toys, here's what you'll need:
cleaning solution. I hate that I love Go Clean Co.'s homemade all-purpose cleaner so much. I used to be a straight up vinegar-and-water gal. That first wave of the pandemic got me panic-cleaning with a lot of less-natural cleaners, and I haven't yet entirely weaned myself off of them. In particular, that Tide+water+bleach combo is SUCH a dang good degreaser and stain remover--ugh! For a much more natural cleaning solution, sub your favorite natural laundry detergent for the Tide, especially if you think it does a good job fighting stains without a lot of extra spot treatment. That's why my frenemy Tide is such a solid all-purpose cleaner! Unless your building blocks have been through some shocking scenarios quite recently, they shouldn't need the addition of a disinfectant.
large storage bin.
large blanket.
sandpaper. Moving through the different levels of sandpaper annoys me. Fortunately, 150-grit sandpaper is rough enough to remove most stains and marks with not too much elbow grease, while leaving the surface smooth enough for play.
wood polish (optional). This isn't necessary to refurbish your building blocks, but it does make them look even more high-quality and feel that much more luxurious.
Here's how to clean up and refurbish the dingiest of building blocks!
Step 1: Sort the winners from the losers.
If your building blocks are well-loved, and/or consist of hand-me-downs, thrifted finds, and scraps or seconds, first sort through them and see what blocks actually deserve the spa treatment, and what blocks may just want to move on with their lives.
My own losers' pile consists of blocks that have large knots or other flaws, oddly-shaped seconds that look more like scrap wood than toys, and the occasional piece that's clearly part of some other toy set, like wooden railroad tracks, that we didn't keep or never owned.
My kids loved and played with all these blocks just the same as they did with their "nice" blocks, but there's no need to store them for future play. Instead, I'll keep some for woodcarving or other craft projects, and we'll roast s'mores over the rest.
All the rest of the blocks that you want to keep, upcycle, or donate should be cleaned. That's the next step!
Step 2: Wash those filthy blocks.
As you can see, you can wash even blocks that have been painted. You can wash natural blocks like tree blocks, even ones with the bark still on. Vintage blocks are washable just like new blocks. You can even wash carved wooden toys, like peg dolls and stackers.
The only blocks that I do not put into the communal wash solution are the ones that we've already highly embellished. These consist of blocks that my children painted as "art blocks," blocks that I've decoupaged with paper or fabric, and blocks that we've wood burned and stained. I hand wash each of those blocks individually with regular dish soap.
The cleaning solution is dead simple. All you need are a small amount of stain-fighting, degreasing laundry detergent, and lots and lots of hot water. Also remember that a little bit of laundry detergent goes a LONG way, especially when you don't plan to rinse. Avoid oily additives like tea tree oil, because the goal is to get these blocks squeaky clean with no residues.
Soak the building blocks in the cleaning solution for a couple of hours. Stir them around every now and then to make sure all the blocks have their turn getting nice and clean. Do NOT soak your blocks for several hours, because water and wood aren't actually friends.
An old plastic tub works great to hold everything. Although don't do what I did and add so much water that you can't lift it back up to the sink to drain it. SIGH!
Dump the clean blocks out on an old blanket (or the back side of a vintage He-Man bedspread, ahem...) and let air dry.
Step 3: Sand stained or marked blocks.
To clean up blocks that have an old yellowed finish, or are stained or marked, sand them with 150-grit sandpaper. You can also sand the blocks to remove unwanted paint or varnish, although PLEASE use lead-safe practices for this! Use a palm sander to speed up the process.
When I'm sanding blocks to refurbish for more block play, I also round all corners and edges on each block. I don't know why historical children got to play with so many pointy things. Today's toddlers prefer to keep all their eyeballs intact, thank you!
Step 4 (optional): Polish with a natural wood polish.
When I'm refurbishing blocks for more block play, I often paint them and seal them. But there's a lot to be said for providing children with simple, natural, unfinished wooden blocks as well as brightly painted ones! Kids don't always need every single sense stimulated to the max, and wood is already so beautiful on its own.
If you leave your blocks unpainted and unvarnished, a nice way to shine them up and make them look marvelous is simply to polish them with a natural wood polish.
Your clean and dry blocks can now be stored as heirlooms, embellished and upcycled into fun, new playthings, or donated to someone who will love them all over again.
If you're a fabric hoarder collector like me, then you completely understand that fabric is art.
That being said, of course there are times when you want to showcase that beautiful fabric of yours not on a body, or even on a quilt, but instead displayed on the wall like the art that it is.
Making a fabric wall hanging is a little more complicated than just nailing a length of fabric to your wall (that wouldn't work because the fabric would pull and warp), but it's actually not much more complicated. The trick is to attach the fabric to something that you CAN nail to the wall.
Here's how to make that fabric wall hanging happen!
You will need:
fabric. I'm using a panel that's 20"x54". It's a print of The Hobbit's book cover that I bought from Spoonflower, and it's my current Most Favorite Thing. Ideally, your fabric panel will have a margin of at least 2" at the top and bottom that you don't love. If not, then sew a narrow strip of fabric at the top and bottom.
wood. You'll need two thin boards, around 1"-2" wide and each a little longer than the fabric panel. I've still got a bunch of boards in the garage from when I tore out the closet in the kids' bedroom last year, so I cut one of those up for this project.
glue. You can use a variety of glue for this project, but hot glue is the least fussy.
1. Cut your panel to size. You need an extra 1"-2" at the top and bottom of this panel where you're going to attach it to the wood, but the sides of the panel can be cut flush to your pattern or hemmed to be so.
Take care to cut the top and bottom of your panel completely parallel; otherwise, your panel will hang wonky!
2. Prepare the wood. Because I'm cutting down an old board for this project, I also needed to sand it and stain it. You can paint your boards in a custom color, as well, or leave them natural.
3. Attach a hanger. Choose the board that will be on top, then attach the hanging hardware to it. There are several ways to do this. You could nail on a picture hanger or wire, attach an old belt, or do as I've done and drill a hole at each end of the board.
After the fabric is mounted to the board, thread a length of clothesline or paracord through each hole, back to front, and knot it in the front.
At the back, hot glue the cord from the place where it emerges from the hole straight up to the top of the board--this will keep it from flipping the board sideways when you hang it.
4. Attach the fabric to the wood. This part is a little fiddly, because you want your panel to hang straight and even. Going in small sections, glue the top two inches of the top of the panel to the back of top board. Be careful not to stretch the fabric as you work, and take care to keep it level.
Repeat for the bottom of the fabric and the bottom board.
Your fabric wall hanging is going to look great wherever you put it, but when you're tired of it, just cut it away from the boards and make it into something else!
I'm back again with more tales of the Wonders of Geometry!
Have you ever found an online tutorial or template that you love, but it's not quite exactly what you're looking for? Maybe the thing that you really wanted to make is a few inches bigger or smaller or has a differently angled curve. The heart wants what it wants, you know?
There's often no need to settle for something less than your vision because often, creating your own template from scratch is surprisingly workable. Here, for instance, I'm going to walk you through how to create a template to make a wood star.
No matter how big you want your star to be, or how many points you want it to have, you can make the pattern for it completely from scratch, and the assembly is the same no matter which type you create.
So grab your ruler and grab your scroll saw, because it's time for some hands-on geometry!
Tools & Supplies
To make your own wood star from scratch, you will need:
Scrap wood. Old barn wood is practically de rigueur for making wood stars (and you should definitely score some if you can!), but old pallet wood gives much the same effect and is often much more easily obtainable, and scrap pieces of clean, new wood require less sanding and much less prep work before painting.
Ruler and compass, OR template and a straight edge. You can draw your star template completely from scratch using a ruler and a compass, or you can skip a few steps by using my template of concentric circles with divisions already marked.
Scroll saw or circular saw. Technically, you can use any saw that will cut a straight line for this project, but I like using a circular saw.
Sandpaper. A palm sander is unnecessary but saves a ton of time.
If you want to start completely from scratch, use your compass to draw a series of concentric circles on a piece of large-format paper. Start with a circle with a radius of 1", and draw each successive circle with a radius 1" larger, until you've reached the maximum diameter of the star that you want to make. For a large star that makes a good tree topper, I like a circle with a radius of 7". For a smaller star that makes a good ornament, I like a circle with a radius of 4".
Next, choose the number of points that you want your star to have, double that number, and evenly intersect your circle with that number of lines. For a four-point star, then, you'll need to divide your circle into eighths, and a traditional five-point star will need a circle divided into tenths.
There are a LOT of benefits to having a spouse who's a graphic designer, and one big benefit is being able to get custom concentric circles divided according to my specifications!
The pattern piece for your wood star will be a diamond. To draw the diamond, you're going to use your segmented concentric circles template. The bottom of the diamond is the center of the circle, and the top point will touch the largest concentric circle. Make a dot where one of your lines touches this circle.
Go to the next line that segments the circle, and decide which smaller concentric circle represents where you want the widest part of the diamond to be. Make a dot where that line touches that circle, then connect the two dots using a straight edge. The next line around the circle gets a dot up high, and the line after that gets a dot down low. Connect all those dots, and you've got half your template made.
To finish it, trace the lines from each low dot down to the center of the circle. This will complete your star, which is now made from a series of identical diamonds. Below is the template on which I drew a four-point, five-point, and six-point star in different colors:
My largest circle on this template has a radius of 7", so the entire star will be 14" in diameter. I chose the circle with a 3" radius to mark the widest part of the diamond for each star.
2. Cut the Star Pieces Out of Wood
Cut out just one of the diamonds from your paper template, and trace it onto the wood. Repeat until you have all the diamonds that you need to construct the star, then cut them out.
3. Sand the Star's Points
Arrange all your diamonds so that they make your star, and make sure that they're all nice and even and everything fits together snugly. Don't worry if you've got some gaps, because you can fill those in later with wood putty.
In the photo above, see how my star fits together nicely, but looks raggedy around the edges? The faces that will show on the finished star aren't super smooth, either. Solve this issue by sanding all of the faces that will show on the finished star, and then use the sandpaper to round the edges on the star's points. That's all it takes to turn your star from chunky and amateur to polished and professional!
4. Glue the Star Together
Gluing the diamonds together to construct your star is a pain in the butt, because your star probably won't have any parallel lines to clamp onto. I've seen woodworkers use shims to correct awkward angles while clamping, and I've also heard of woodworkers advocating using tape instead of clamps for these kinds of irregular figures, but my main strategy is just to fuss over it.
When the glue has cured, sand away any excess from the front and back of the star. If you plan to paint it, fill in any gaps in the joins with wood putty, then sand again when the putty has cured.
5. Embellish!
There are so many fun ways embellish and display these stars! To turn your star into an ornament, drill a hole through the top point. To mount it on a dowel as a tree topper or table stand, drill a hole the width of your dowel into the bottom. You can draw and paint on your star, decoupage it and glitter it, or leave it simple and unadorned.
However you choose to embellish your star, a couple of final coats of polyurethane will seal it and keep it new-looking and shiny, because a star this beautiful and well-crafted is a keepsake and heirloom!
Whenever I teach multi-level Girl Scout leaders and we get to talking about badges, I always tell them that a great way for multiple levels of Girl Scouts to simultaneously earn a certain badge is to do none of the suggested activities.
Your troop of Cadettes, Seniors, and Ambassadors want to earn the Space Science badge at each of their levels? Don't do any of the activities suggested for any of those levels. Instead, make up your own activities!
So when six of my CSA Girl Scouts wanted to come together to earn the Outdoor Art badge last month, we threw out the badge books and instead used a Shared Google Doc to figure out what we actually wanted to do.
After seeing that the kids were mostly interested in various carving skills, I steered the meeting towards one that would involve exploring our local area's limestone industry, then engaging in hands-on experimentation with limestone art, and expanding into other ways to carve and embellish sculptural art.
We met on the campus of Indiana University-Bloomington, and while standing under the Sample Gates we talked about how and where limestone was formed. Our area is unique because the band of Salem Limestone underneath it is quite narrow and only spans the length of two counties. That's why we see so many old quarries around here--they had to be put close together, because that's where the limestone is!
Salem Limestone has good consistency and small grains because of the way that the waves constantly agitated the shallow sea that once existed above it. It's strong, easily carved, and holds detail well. And yet, until the rail industry was extensive enough to provide transportation, Salem Limestone was only a local industry. That's why we see so many old residential houses with limestone facades--there was loads of limestone to be had locally, and no outside markets to buy it up!
When railroads came to the area, however, Salem Limestone became a national industry. That's why there are so many train tracks and rail trails in our area--there used to be railroads everywhere to transport that limestone!
Labor reforms were eventually necessary to the industry. Limestone carving was difficult, manual labor, and before reforms, workers would tell stories of how unemployed people would just stand next to the quarries all day. If a manager saw that a worker wasn't working as hard as they thought he should, the manager would fire that worker on the spot and call a bystander in to take his place. Even after reforms, limestone carving remained difficult, manual labor, but it paid a living wage and was the expected career of several generations of families.
The evolution of architecture styles and building materials eventually tanked the Salem Limestone industry, and now it's mostly used for niche, high-end architecture and university campuses that utilize the "collegiate gothic" style. When the industry tanked, people who'd worked in quarries for their entire careers, after their parents and grandparents had worked in the same quarries for their entire careers, and who expected their children to also work in the same quarries, were let go. They had no other readily marketable skills, no disposable income used to further their education, and there was no other nearby industry that they could easily transition to. Their children were also stuck without access to the careers they'd planned, and even with a university right in town, one whose buildings were built from their parents' and grandparents' labor, they didn't have the income or necessarily the academic preparation for higher education. That's partially why our area has such a weird income/education/culture divide--it economically hobbled whole swaths of long-term residents who now fight for employment and housing and cultural ideals against the hyper-educated residents who are here because of the university.
Never let it be said that I led a single Girl Scout meeting without bringing up politics and social justice and the price of long-term rentals in town!
So after we were all inspired to seize the means of production and legislate universal pre-K and build low-barrier shelters for the unhoused, we went on a walking tour of the IU campus to see some examples of limestone architecture. The kids were asked to bring binoculars--
They did look at interesting architecture with their binoculars, but spent a rather shocking amount of time also looking at innocent passersby...
--and cameras, and were instructed to take photos of interesting architecture as part of their badge activities.
Here's Franklin Hall, which began as the university's library:
It's been extensively renovated and turned into the home of the university's Media School--
--but the John Milton quote remains relevant:
This is the Student Building:
The clock tower has 14 bells that chime every 15 minutes, and can also be played live. In 1990 that whole tower burned down and had to rebuilt using the original 1905 plans.
We walked around and photographed a few more buildings and the campus cemetery, although the kids were definitely more excited about the non-architectural things that we also saw, like squirrels, a wedding party trying to take photos in the rain, a random couple of students breaking geodes on the street, etc.
After we had seen all the awesome limestone things, we settled down to make our own awesome things! With such a diverse cast of characters, I'm never entirely sure who knows what, so I started with a basic lesson for everyone on pocket knife safety, how to hold a knife while whittling and carving, and how to sharpen a knife. Then Matt and my co-leader and I set up stations so the kids could explore various carving and embellishing skills.
Here's Will at the limestone engraving station:
Hoadley Quarry gave Matt several pieces of limestone for hand carving and engraving. I brought my workhorse Dremel and a set of engraving bits, and only lost one to an over-zealous Girl Scout!
We set up a separate station for limestone hand carving, with the larger pieces of limestone, a sandbag and old towel to brace the limestone, and my set of stone carving tools that's similar to this one.
These two stations also had safety glasses, because nobody likes a corneal abrasion!
I showed the kids these super cute twig gnomes, and some of them tried it out, while others did their own thing.
We had a couple of stations set up with wood burners. The kids could burn details into their wood carvings, or wood burn a wooden spoon. It was a little early for holiday gift-making when we met, but a wood burned spoon would make an awesome gift!
I also brought my acrylics, brushes, and water cups and set up a station in case a kid felt more like surface decoration than carving, and a couple of kids used this space to paint their twig gnomes or experiment with adding detail to their limestone engraving.
Overall, this was a super successful Girl Scout meeting! The kids all tried new things, all found something they liked doing, all learned some useful things and still had time to chat and mess around. I feel like the relevance of studying a local industry that's so visually apparent in their daily lives added meaning to the badge work, and hopefully helped them contextualize some local issues.
And if nobody's parent gets a wood burned spoon for Christmas, it's not my fault!
Do you ever have one of those moments when you look at something store-bought and think, "Hey, I could make that!"
That's what I thought one day when I took a good look at the magnetic mosaic kit that my kid was playing with in the car. Of course, not only did I decide that I could make that, but I also decided that I could make my own DIY magnetic mosaic set WAY larger, AND put it on the giant magnetic memo board that my husband and I put in our kitchen. That way, everyone can play!
This is a very easy project, although it's a little time-consuming. The finished result, though, is totally gorgeous and super-fun. Here's how to make it!
magnetic tape. Normally, I go for the strongest magnets possible in the size that I want, but these mosaic magnets are just for fun, not for sticking art to the wall. For the easiest project, choose tape in the same width as your wooden cubes.
Unfortunately, my method does require the use of a plastic zip-top baggie (although I'm almost certain that you could also do this in a small glass jar), but the good news is that you can re-use that baggie indefinitely. I seal them and keep them with our liquid watercolors, and use them over and over again with the same color.
This liquid watercolor stain is mostly water-resistant, but not completely. It's not intended for use by children who still mouth objects (and to be fair, neither are the small wooden cubes!), but if you deeply need the objects to stand up to the occasional immersion in water, then you can either soak them in vinegar to release the excess dye or you can seal them with your favorite clear sealant.
Let the cubes dry completely before you begin the next step.
2. Add the magnets. Cut the magnetic tape to size (you can usually do this by scoring the magnetic tape in the correct intervals as you measure it with a ruler on top of a gridded cutting mat, then breaking the tape at the scores) and remove the backing.
Although the magnetic tape will usually come with a sticky backing, that stuff is a joke. Instead, place a dab of hot glue on the back of each cube and glue that magnetic tape down yourself!
3. Enjoy! We like this magnetic mosaic kit best on our large magnetic wall board, where anyone who happens by can play with them and change the pattern, but if you've got a metal cookie sheet, then you can play with these anywhere, and if you've got a metal tin, then you can even come full circle and play with them in the car.
Some things you just cannot pass by, such as a great toy hiding underneath a gross one.
On a recent trip to Goodwill, my kid showed me this wooden shield. It was finely crafted, made from a solid piece of wood with sturdy straps on the back, but man, it was a mess. It looked as if it had been given to a kid to paint, and then that kid had painted one hundred thousand layers of muddy paint on it.
I am all about process-oriented art, my friends, but when it's done on a great toy, an heirloom quality wooden one that some other kid would be absolutely thrilled to have?
It bummed me out to look at it.
So even though the kid is probably a wee bit too old for it, I told her we could buy it. At a buck, the price was for sure right, but also, I knew that very few people were going to look at that gross toy in that Goodwill and see what I saw: a great toy that just needed some sweat equity and some TLC.
Step one: sand that baby down! I made the kid do some of the sanding with our trusty palm sander, but I took over when she got tired of it, because it was a big, tedious job.
Friends, there were a LOT of layers of paint on that shield!
Hiding way, way, at the bottom was also a printed outline of a two-headed dragon, probably what the child was intended to color. My older kid would have loooooooved to color a shield with a two-headed dragon on it, but alas, this dragon had one hundred thousand layers of muddy paint on it, so it got sanded down with all the rest.
To do a really bang-up job, you could use sandpaper with progressively finer grit after you'd sanded all of that paint off, and end up with a shield face that was as smooth as butter. I didn't bother going too smooth, though, because I knew that the techniques we were going to use to refinish the shield wouldn't require it.
Step two: base coat. If it had been up to me, I would have painted a nice design on top of the bare wood, then sealed everything, leaving some natural wood to show and be pretty. This is my kid's shield, however, and she likes things to shine; she spray painted a base coat of gold on top of the bare wood.
Step three: draw a design. My kid worked on this for a while, because first she drew a bird, then decided that she didn't like it, so erased the entire thing and drew a unicorn. I had her draw her design in pencil so that she could erase it, but if that didn't work, it wouldn't have been a big deal to lightly sand the shield, repaint the base coat, and go again.
After she was happy with the penciled design, she went over the pencil with black Sharpie to give her a better outline to color in.
Step four: paint the design. I gave my kid our nice artist's acrylics to use when she painted in all the colors on her unicorn. Craft acrylics are a good substitute, but artist's acrylics are thicker, and I think they're better for details and smaller projects.
After she'd finished painting, she went back over the Sharpie lines, to cover any paint that had gotten out of the lines. The finished result looks neat and tidy.
Step five: seal the shield. This step isn't completely necessary, but the shield will last longer and hold up better to hard play if you do. I didn't want any of my kid's beautiful unicorn to chip off, so I sealed it with a clear sealant.
My kid and I are very pleased with the finished product--it's a great toy now, and is one hundred percent worth the buck that I paid for it. The wooden shield looks a million times better, will hold up for all kinds of pretend play and dress-up, and it's so lovely now, decorated with my kid's artwork, that I can certainly see it being a keepsake for her after she's grown.
I mean, come one--she painted a unicorn on it. Can you get any more ten-year-old girl than that?
I am a hipster cliche.
Because Mason jar lights? They found me. They called to me. They spoke in my ear, and I heard, "Julie! You need some lighting to go above your new handmade headboard! You could put that light... in a Mason jar!"
And I said, "Why, yes. Yes, I could!"
To be fair, it's not like I don't already have a ton of Mason jars just lying around. I mean, we drink out of them. I do actually can things, on occasion. So actually, sticking a light bulb in a Mason jar is just about the cheapest and most efficient lighting solution. I didn't have to buy a shade or drill out a tea cup bottom or whatever else the cool people are doing (I won't even Google it, lest I then want to do it, too).
And it looks awesome!
How to Make Hanging Mason Jar Lights
Here's what we needed to make our hanging Mason jar light:
hanging lamp cord kit. The kind that you need will have a lip that screws off and allows you to put a lampshade on it. Most kits that are intended to be decorative and not, like, a shop light will have this, because most people don't want to hang naked bulbs from their ceiling.
LED Edison bulb. I know you love the look of the Edison bulb. I do, too! But conventional Edison bulbs are huge energy hogs, even hotter and more inefficient than old conventional bulbs. They're so hot that I don't even know if it would be totally safe to put one in a Mason jar and then light it up. Use an LED Edison bulb and go frown at all of those hipster restaurants that don't--they're heating up our planet!
shelf brackets. These are what you screw into your wall to hold a flat shelf from underneath. We found a couple of matching ones in our garage, but if we hadn't, I'd have checked our local ReStore or Freecycle.
tools. Obviously. The only weird tools that you'll need are things that can make a hole in a Mason jar lid. For that, my husband used a screwdriver, a hammer, and pliers, although I really wanted him to use my tin snips or even my Dremel.
1. Make a hole in the Mason jar lid and insert the pendant light fitting. See, doesn't it look messy when you don't use tin snips or a Dremel? Of course, you're not going to actually be able to see any of those untidy bits when you've put the mounting lip in the hole--
--but still! It would have been tidier if it had been done with tin snips or a Dremel.
2. Screw everything together. Now you should be able to add the ring for the Mason jar, the socket for the light, and then screw the light into the socket and the Mason jar onto the ring.
3. Mount the wall bracket. This can go wherever you want your light to hang from, mounted just the way that you would if you were actually going to put a shelf on it.
4. Hang the light. Our particular shelf bracket had a groove in the bottom that worked nicely to hide the cord, but really we just wrapped the cord around the end, adjusted it so that the Mason jar pendant light hung where we wanted it to, and then fastened the cord in place using the magic of zip ties.
It's not a super polished look, but we aren't a super polished people, and it meets my dual purposes of giving off enough light to read by and looking pretty great.
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