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There are very few original ideas. And, I'm not the first one to think that!
What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. —Ecclesiastes 1:9 (English Standard Version)
There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know. —Ambrose Bierce
If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burden of a former child. —Shakespeare's Sonnet 59
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. —George Santayana
So, that being said, I know that I have received inspiration and ideas from colleagues and strangers alike. Here are some ideas that are not original, but I have used them and adapted them. And, now I pass them on to you so that they do not get lost in the past.
stone snakes
Find a round stone—not to tall—very smooth—just right for a creating a curled up snake. Give your stone a good scrubbing using a stiff bristled brush and dishsoap. Let dry completely. You can paint the entire rock a solid background color before tracing on your design. But, most of my snakes (4 of the 5 in this picture) use the color of the stone as the background color. They look a little more natural and take less time and paint!
bottlecap snake
You'll need to drink a lot of Sprecher's or know a good bartender. (Thanks, Lindsey!) Use a hammer and 16 penny nail to put a hole in the center of each bottle cap. My 36" long snake took 150 bottle caps to create. Sort your caps and try to come up with a repeating pattern of colors. String each cap onto a heavy (but flexible) wire. Wire from a cheap coat hanger might work. Use Sculpey (or some other brand of polymer clay) to form a head and tail. Use a bottle cap as the base. Cure clay according to directions. Paint on eyes and add a ribbon tongue. Glue the head and tail to the body.
fingerpuppets
For more years than I might like to admit, I shared stories, fun, and art with preschoolers at Havenwoods State Forest in Milwaukee. I believe that puppets can help kids imagine, play, and explore in nature. But if you've spent much time with preschoolers you know that if you are going to use a puppet, you better have one puppet for each kid. So far, I've got butterflies, bees, ladybugs, and mice. These butterflies have a felt "finger" topped with a piece of double-thick yellow felt. I drew the wing designs on with a fabric marker. The body is a thin piece of felt. The antennae are black stamens from the florist department of a craft store. The eyes are 6mm black beads glued on with flexible fabric glue. The kids love to fly around outside with butterflies on their fingers! Sometimes I call out, "find a yellow flower," or "smell a blue flower." Sometimes they just fly around!
interpretive bandanas
Printing handkerchiefs with mammal tracks, butterflies, and scat is nothing new, but I had never seen bird tracks on the snow. Here's how I did it. I found illustrations of bird tracks and enlarged them to actual size. Using an exacto knife, I cut stencils for each track from leftover laminate. Then, using fabric paint or ink and a stencil brush, I stenciled the tracks on the bandana. I just turned the stencil over to make right and left feet. When the ink was dry, I used a very fine blue Sharpie to outline the right side of the track. This gives the track a 3D look and pops it right off the fabric (or down into the fabric!). You can also use the blue marker to write the names of the birds next to their tracks.
I've seen star bandanas for sale, but I wanted ones with a winter night sky so I could use the bandanas to tell the story of the Great Winter Hunt and help people find the Winter Circle. I made two separate stencils for this one. One stencil had all the stars. The other stencil had the Milky Way. I made alignment marks on the stencils so that I could position them correctly. First, I stenciled on all the stars with glow-in-the-dark paint. When that was dry, I stenciled on the Milky Way. Then I labeled the constellations and brightest stars. The side benefit of this kind of project is that you really learn your stars!