Crafts

You can enjoy nature anytime of year! These craft ideas are a fun way to bring nature inside. Be sure you have help from a grow-up when doing any craft project.

Make a nature-walk mobile

1. Go on a nature walk. Choose any natural area, from your back yard to a city park.
   
2. Pick up a few small interesting things you find, like leaves, sticks, small branches, pine cones, seeds or seed pods. (Remember that it's against the law to take home bird feathers and nests, so enjoy them in the wild, then leave them there.)
   
3. When you return home, gather these supplies: string or yarn, scissors, glue.
   
4. Lay out your nature finds on the floor or table. Choose two larger sticks to be the main support of your mobile. Make an "X" with the sticks and tie them together with plenty of yarn.
   
5. Tie or glue pieces of yarn to each of your nature finds, then tie them to the "X" sticks.
   
6. Tie another piece of yarn or string (double the string if your mobile is very heavy) to the branches to hang your mobile from the ceiling.
   
7. Enjoy your artwork! You'll remember your nature walk every time you see your mobile.

Nature critters

1. Go on a nature walk. Choose any natural area, from your back yard to a city park.
   
2. Pick up a few small interesting things you find, like leaves, sticks, small branches, pine cones, seeds or seed pods, bark, or grasses. (Remember that it's against the law to take home bird feathers and nests, so enjoy them in the wild, then leave them there.)
   
3. When you return home, gather these supplies: string or yarn, scissors, glue.
   
4. Lay out your collection of natural art supplies. Use your imagination... think of ways to make animals from your finds. Pieces of pinecone may make good animal ears. Whole pine cones, tree bark or leaves, or an acorn might be an animal body or head. Grass could be a tail or legs.
   
5. Assemble your critter using glue or string or yarn.
   
6. Enjoy your critters! You can make some critter habitat out of your remaining nature finds. You can play with your critters - imagine what they might see and do.