Chinese New Year rabbit lantern

I thought the eco craft class could celebrate Chinese New Year with these cute little lanterns. We started with clean empty baby food jars and pasted little rabbit paper cuts on them. Then decoupaged tissue paper over the bottle. We wrapped wire around the mouth of the jar and threaded the wire through a chopstick with a hole drilled in the end.
A lovely lantern that could hold a real tea light candle without burning the holders hand. I supplied battery powered candles though.




The class had fun testing them out in a cupboard in the classroom.

recycled on the go cup

Ever on the go and forget containers for the kids snacks? Happens to me all the time. I knot handkerchiefs, cup napkins... but they always spill. Especially in the car. So I adapted this origami technique for a sturdy little cup. I use whatever clean-ish paper is around. It works with squares or rectangles.








Fold paper in half diagonally.








Fold the two corners in so they overlap.








Fold the front top corner down. (can fold back corner back, but I find this easier to pass around)








Open cup







Fold bottom corners in for a standing base.








Fill with snack.

Potato Prints

I must say, I was a little disappointed with this one. I spent a week planning/designing these prints and 2 hours carving them. But then I decided to use a new paint (formulated for silk screening but the label said could be used for printing) because the Scribbles that I usually use gets all hard and scratchy. I also carved the potatoes the day before the class and stored them in lemon water over night since I didn't have time to carve them just before the class. The potatoes cupped overnight so it was very difficult to print with them and it had not occurred to be to bring a large carving knife to school with me. So I couldn't fix them.

I am really happy with the stamp designs. They are mix and match animals. The children tried to play with them, but the stamps were so hard to use we all ended up frustrated. So much for my big WOW first project of the quarter.
I think I will try to fix the prints today and stamp up some cards or something before the potatoes go in the compost heap. oh well. At least I am happy with the designs. I may enlarge them and make mix and match iron-ons or something.