pumpkin seed art

I usually save seeds from my squash and pumpkins for next-season planting, but one pumpkin has enough seeds to spare some for roasting and some for fun! We hadn't ever dyed pumpkin seeds before this but they came out really pretty; some of them dyed dark, some light, some speckled.

What you need:

• pumpkin (or other squash) seeds
• food coloring
• white vinegar
• paper and glue

Just add some white vinegar and a few drops of food coloring to a bowl, mix, and add pumpkin seeds. Leave them in until you are happy with the color, then drain and let them dry on towels at room temperature or a cookie sheet in the oven at a low temperature. Glue them on however you'd like. Love this tree idea!

Dyed seeds.

Bowls of vinegar, dye.

Counting out seeds.

H&F both wanted to make shapes - they each made a circle and rectangle.

Yellow rectangle!

fairy house

It has been an insanely busy spring for us! There is so much to catch up on but I'll start with this sweet fairy house we built outside when the weather was summery one week in March. We gathered up sticks from around the yard, and one was bent, according to F, "like a rainbow!" With that, and some rocks we had painted previously, we started our fairy house. I asked what a fairy might need and got lots of responses - a bed, some food, shelter from the sun, and a doorway were just some of their ideas. I used some string to bunch some of the straight branches together. It has held up quite well!