Create a nature-inspired pinecone owl
Nature has always been a huge influence/inspiration in my life. I credit a lot of this to my mother and the Girl Scouts.
When I was in Girl Scouts, I couldn’t wait to go to summer camp. I loved being outdoors and around water. In high school I was a counselor at camp Round Meadow. The summer before my senior year of college I worked as a counselor for a Girl Scout Camp in Temple, Texas.
When I lived in Oregon, Japan, and Washington (state), I couldn’t get enough of the natural beauty available to me. Needless to say, I love being in nature.
It’s been awhile since my fiancée and I have gotten away from the house and when I left work on Friday, I knew it was time for me to “commune with nature.” His best man lives up on Bundick Lake and we both absolutely love going up there to visit because it’s so breathtaking and relaxing. I wanted to go right after work, because I’m impatient, but my better half reminded me that by the time we got home, took care of the animals, packed and got there, it’d be dark. So, Saturday it was.
This turned out to be the better option because it gave me the chance to visit some of the Creative Crafters that were having sales at their home. My soon to be mother-in-law is my partner in crime when it comes to well…pretty much anything I want to do. She’s the best and I always love our adventures.
So we left early Saturday morning. I picked up some crafting paper, stamps, and some beads. When I got home, my guy was ready for the trip up to Bundick Lake.
About every 5 years, they drain the lake for the residents to make repairs to their docks. The lake is beautiful when it’s full, but in my opinion, it’s just as beautiful if not more when it’s low.
I went out to see the lack of lake and realized that there were sooo many clams and mussels stuck in the sand. I did not realize there were freshwater clams and mussels around here.
I was excited to go “beach” combing. The local nature of Bundick Lake and our friend’s hospitality of having us up is the inspiration of this week’s craft.
I decided to make an owl out of the mussel shells and pine cones. I gathered up some pine cones and multiple sized mussel and clam shells.
The next day, I came home with my treasures. The shells needed to be cleaned so I scraped out any sand, gave them a quick rinse with water and placed them in the sink with the drain stopped.
I sprinkled baking soda on top and then started adding some distilled white vinegar. I added more soda and vinegar until I had a good foaming bath going. I drained the baking soda/vinegar mixture and rinsed the shells, placed them on a towel to dry.
Once dry, I took two half shells that were around the same size and found a pine cone that would fit the shell size.
I plugged in the hot glue gun, my new best crafting friend, and applied hot glue to the hinge of the shell, placed it on the pine cone and filled in the hole with more hot glue. I did the same thing for the other side; so now my pine cones have wings.
I wanted to have a stand for my owl so I used one of the large clam shells. I put hot glue in the well of the shell and nestled in my pine cone with wings.
I tend to make more than one thing at a time so I went ahead and created a friend for my first owl. While they dried and cooled off, I went scavenging for owl eyes.
I knew acorn tops would be perfect for owl eyes, but my chickens were a little suspect when I came out scratching around under the oak tree. They followed me around making sure I wasn’t finding any good morsels that they missed.
After collecting a few good tops, I went back inside to check on my owls. They dried perfectly.
I grabbed the bag of beads that I bought Saturday morning and there were some beads that were just the right size to fit into the acorn tops. I used two round white beads for one owl and two bent white beads for another. I filled the tops with hot glue and situated the beads on top of the glue.
After they dried, I carefully applied hot glue to the back sides of the eyes and popped them into place on my owl. I had to apply some more glue to fill in any cracks around the pine cone scales.
I also found a bead in the bag that would work for a beak. I applied glue to the back of the bead and placed it in between the eyes.
There was only one of those beads and couldn’t find another one that would work so I decided that one of the owls was hiding it’s beak in it’s feathers because it was cold.
To bring out more of a feeling that my owl was cold, I added a hill of clear beads to make it look like snow with hot glue.
Still wanting to add some more nature to my owls, I took snippets from my rosemary bush. Knowing these would eventually dry and become brown, I did not glue them down. They fit nicely underneath the owl’s bottom which gives the illusion of the owl sitting on a pine tree.
These owls were fun to make and would be a great project for kids with adult supervision for the hot glue. If you wanted to forgo the hot glue, I believe a craft glue like E-6000 would work.
Now the only thing left is for me to name my owls. I’m sure when I bring them to work, my co-workers will name them. Everything has a name in our department, even the plants.
If you would like to get a better look at these owls, stop in to the office. Let me know what you would name them. Don’t forget that if you have left over craft supplies that need a new home or are a crafting business give us a call to let us know that you are apart of the crafting movement and place your ad in the Creative Crafter.
<hr />
<em><em><strong>Creative Crafting with Kim</strong></em> prints on Saturdays. If you would like to advertise your crafting business or sell leftover crafting supplies call the American Press Classified department at 337-494-4000 or email <a href="mailto:djean@americanpress.com">djean@americanpress.com</a>. Deadline to place a display ad is Wednesday at 4pm and line ad deadline is Friday at 4pm. Feedback about this article can be sent to <a href="mailto:kwright@americanpress.com">kwright@americanpress.com</a>.</em>