Hanging Planters Hung

The first hanging planters have been hung on the wall! Now to see if the paint lasts...

Tree Haikus

For my Forest Schools portfolio, I've been working on some tree flash cards with photos, description, folklore etc To give them a little something extra, I've also written a little haiku about each of the trees which I thought I'd share with you.

Ash

Large black buds burst open
To reveal pink coral blooms
Which make seeds like keys

Beech

Sharply pointed buds
Trunk like an elephant's leg
Bears edible nuts

Elder

Small scented flowers
Turn to rich purple berries
Hang from gnarled branches

Hawthorn

Delicate flowers
Berries and leaves bread and cheese
Knotted wood bears thorns

Rowan

Altitude lover
Leaves pinnate and serrated
Bears bright red berries

Sycamore

Flowers dangling
Five fingered leaves with red stems
Helicopters spin

Oak

From acorns they grow
Can live for a thousand years
House many species

Horse Chestnut

Big brown sticky buds
Conkers come from spiky shells
Pretty pink flowers

Field Maple

Lone English Maple
Helicopters tumble down
Soft edged green leaves grow

Birch

Peeling Silver skin
Delicate leaves tumbling
With winter catkins

Milk Bottle Planter project - improvements

 I started working a little while ago to create some colourful hanging planters to go in the community garden I'm working on from recycled milk bottles (see original post here) so I thought I'd give a little update on developments and improvements I've made. I'm currently working with a wildlife and gardening theme - so fruits, veg and animals!

I have been working with acyrilic paints - which probably aren't ideal for painting onto a plastic surface but mostly I'm just working with materials that are easily available to me! Acrylic paint does have a tendency to flake off a little and if they're to stay outside they they need to be varnished to withstand water.

Froggy planter gets the waterproof test!

Finished planters get a few layers of this spray varnish to protect them from the elements

Hedgehog and froggy planters

So far I've done a hedgehog and frog as examples and I'm working on an elephant. 

Can you tell what it is yet...?

The idea is to do this activity with different groups so I've been working on ways to make it as easy and effective as possible. Now I'm going to prime the milk bottles with white acrylic paint to help the coloured layers to adhere better and which should also make it easy to draw a simple design in felt pen before starting to paint.

I'm hoping to make animal planters with the after school gardening club I'm running but I'm saving it for a rainy day activity... Of course I'm hoping that we'll be able to have as much outside time as possible - but when the inevitable rainy session arrives I'll get a chance to try it out as a session!

Forest Schools Photo Diary - Days 4 & 5

Mallet making using a bill hook

Using bramble to make string

Firing up the kelly kettle for a brew!

Cooking cake in orange halves on the fire...

... and the finished results - yum!

Bed for the night

Making artists charcoal on the fire

Continuing to practise fire lighting

Getting to know a tree - the all seeing eye!

Exploring trees - a squirrels eye view

Forest Schools Photo Diary - Day Three

Learning to tie a timber hitch

Using our newly learning hitches and lashing to build a tripod

Using King Alfred Cakes to start a fire

Glowing King Alfred Cake

Forest Schools Photo Diary - Day Two

Graham and Isabel using a bow saw the Forest School Way

Using lashing and weaving to make a woodland talisman

Using that bow sawing to make a lovely woodland medallion

Practising the fire skills from yesterday

Making woodland bread to cook on the fire!

Forest Schools Photo Diary - Day One

Putting up a tarp shelter

Making a home for an alien friend

Making a fire using the V-lay technique

What goes into a good fire lighting kit...

Inspired by Mark Hearld

And here is the finished work of art for the Mark Hearld display at Potteric Carr. I still need to add some interactive elements such as asking how many animals they can spot in the picture. It's too promote a competition to give away a signed copy of First Book of Nature.

Mark Hearld Display - Work in Progress

I'm working on a display board inspired by the work of Mark Hearld for the education centre/cafe at Potteric Carr.

Extra points for anyone who can spot the bittern!

Softpots

I've had a few days off this week and so I went along to learn how to make a softpot - which is something I've wanted to do for a while. If you walk along Stonegate in York, you could easily miss the entrance to a small alley way, but if it does happen to catch your eye then you will surely not be able to stop yourself going to have a closer look. A sign above the doorway reads "the secret garden", and as you journey down the alley way there is a glittering dazzling feast for the eyes, as the walls a decorated with soft pots galore!

Source: softpots.com via Charlotte on Pinterest

Softpots are quite a simple design and concept. It's basically one of those "does what it says on the tin" jobs. The soft pots are made out of tights, the amazing part is the decoration which makes it into something really special.

Here are our pots midway through the decoration stage:

Festooned with layers of brightly coloured fibres, glitter, ribbons and sequins, once the top of the pot is folded over the glorious psychadelic softpot is complete!

Think I'll have a go at doing this with the after school club!

Have a Hoot!

Here's a video from the wonderful Gavin Repton, who came along to film at Have a Hoot! an owl event at Potteric Carr this February half term:


It was a glorious sunny day and over 60 people turned up on the day! I feel very lucky that this is what I do for a living!

Milk Bottle Planters project

I love making things out of rubbish! I got the idea of making recycled planters that could be hung around my community garden site, with herbs and other things growing in them.

I got lots of inspiration by looking at similar projects online. This one by artist Hayley Fern is particularly good!

Source: hayleyfernarts.blogspot.co.uk via Charlotte on Pinterest

I'd been asked to do a plant pot painting session so I thought I'd get crafty with some milk bottles. We painted a few but I'd like to quite a lot of planters like this to go at the Secret Garden and around the area.

Here are a couple that I've painted up to look like strawberries, which I hope will be fixed onto a wall to form part of a community mural.

Spring Things

Tomorrow morning I'll be rising early to lead an early spring walk at Potteric Carr (although I don't think the weather is going to be very spring-like...). I've been researching lots of spring facts and here are some of resources I've come across. The Woodland Trust loads of fantastic spotter sheets on their nature detectives website, and I found one on first signs of spring and on blossoms and catkins.

Looking into different trees, I was trying to remember the name of the French liqueur made with the early leaves from blackthorn - and I found this article on the Guardian on how to make epine. I'll drop in the fact about the cyanide in the leaves giving the drink it's almond flavour!

The BBC's nature webpages have some good information on hibernation. I've come across this website on British Butterflies before and I find the calendar to search which species can be seen each month. Here's what you might see in March. Bat Conservation Trust have a good article on a year in the life of a bat.

A blog is born

Oh hello there blogosphere, it's been a while. I've missed you! I got really into blogging when I started my voyage of discovery into the world of volunteering. That journey ended last year after volunteering full-time for about 18 months when I got my dream job with Yorkshire Wildlife Trust - actually I got several dream jobs! Firstly I got a part-time role as a project assistant on a community-led gardening project in York called Dig In (like us on Facebook?), then by some quirk of fate a part-time job in the Communications Team at YWT also came up which fit in perfectly with and complemented my Dig In role. Sadly my Comms role was only temporary but shortly after that finished I was lucky enough to get a role working on events and education at Potteric Carr Nature Reserve. I guess all that volunteering paid off!
I tried to continue blogging after I'd finished volunteering, but as my blog had a profound volunteering theme to it (Title: Yes, I work for Free - which I tried to alter slightly with some cleverly placed crossing out of words...), I found that my inspiration for writing has disappeared.
Yet still I wanted to keep writing, and I knew it was just a case of finding a subject. And here it is. Both my new roles involve lots of creative crafty aspects which I enjoy both researching and making - so my new blog was born to share with you the crafty activities I've invented (or more often, stolen from the internet and done less well...) for events at my Nature Reserve and Community Gardening jobs. I hope you might find some inspiration yourself.
When I first started taking steps towards a career in conservation, I didn't realise that it would mostly involve cutting up milk bottles and being silly to amuse kids, but you know what - I like it!