Go outside, get crafty and make a mess

Take time away from that screen and get in touch with nature this summer

Make the most of summer days by crafting outdoors. After so much time spent on screens this past year, it’s a huge benefit to be outdoors and use all your senses, says Tina Soldovieri, an environmental educator at the High Park Nature Centre.

“It’s very calming, peaceful and satisfying to sit outside and do something, and you don’t have to worry about the mess,” said Soldovieri. Take inspiration from natural surroundings: flowers, leaves, sticks and plant stems can be transformed into art. From sun prints and tie-dye to pressed flowers, here are five crafts to help you enjoy the outdoors this summer.

Make your own grass ink

For Melissa Jenkins, nature not only inspires her art but also the materials she uses to create it.

“I get creative outdoors, first by discovering and collecting plant material to create paint and ink with. I turn discarded branches into paint brush handles, transform unwanted invasive weeds into ink and use birch bark from the forest floor to create black ink,” said Jenkins, who creates her own botanical inks from foraged plants in the fields around her farmhouse in Erin, Ont., which she sells as kits and uses to create abstract art. Even paintbrushes can be inspired by nature, said Jenkins, who uses sticks from her driveway and ties random plant stems, leaves and flowers to them using string, raffia, twist ties or elastics.

Make a simple ink with grass or even dandelion greens blended with water, said Jenkins. Collect a couple of handfuls of fresh grass and put it in a blender, adding a little bit of water until you get a rich green liquid, adding more water or stirring to blend more easily. Cover a glass jar with a filter (cheesecloth, pantyhose sock or coffee filter will do) and secure with an elastic. Pour the ink into the jar through the filter. Then have fun painting with the ink. Store any leftovers in a labelled jar in the refrigerator. Pro tip: Add a clove to the ink to help preserve it and keep out of direct sunlight to prolong the colour on paper.

Use the power of the sun

Gather plants and flowers from your garden, or items found on a nature walk or a trip to the beach, to create unique solar or cyanotype silhouette prints using the sun’s rays. To create them you’ll need sun-sensitive dye, paper, gathered objects and a sunny day. Look for the cyanotype dye at art stores or buy a kit that includes everything you need, including ready-to-use sun sensitive paper to make your own solar prints. Place the objects on the paper and, within minutes of exposure to the sun, you’ll create your own custom prints. A solar print kit is available at the Urban Nature Store.

Tie-dye in a rainbow of natural colours

Tie-dye is a great way to get outdoors and craft with a small group of friends — perfect for our reality of small gatherings only, said Julie Sinden, a textile artist and natural dye expert from Toronto. “It’s the ultimate summer activity and the perfect amount of messy (that is, not too much) and you can be very relaxed about it.”

Tie-dye is a resist dyeing technique that creates patterns on fabric that is folded or twisted, and bound with elastics or string before applying dye. Kits can often contain synthetic colours, but it’s possible to tie-dye using natural dyes, said Sinden, who produces a line of natural dye kits that contains everything you need to get started. Colours include madder root for a peachy orange shade, cochineal for pink, osage sawdust for yellow and logwood chips for purple. Look for the Make a Rainbow Kit.

Press flowers — wildflower crafts

On your next walk, pay attention to the wildflowers, which can be beautiful pressed and used in a variety of projects, including cards or framed as wall art.

“I often find my best flowers on the side of the road,” said Tamara Oake, who owns Oake Living, an Etsy shop selling handmade flower presses and botanical prints made in her Halifax studio.

“Pressing flowers is a way to look at the nature around you a little closer, and having a flower press on hand gives you a reason to get outside and connect with the nature around you.” Oake’s presses are made of birch plywood screen printed with botanical designs and include everything you need to press your own flowers.

Craft for nature

Being creative outdoors can include crafting that is nature friendly and helps attract wildlife, including pollinators, to your backyard.

Think about making a bug hotel to provide protection and nesting areas for beneficial pollinators such as mason bees and butterflies with a beneficial bug abode kit from Urban Nature Store or a made-in-Ontario bird feeder kit — paint it to create a colourful feeder for local birds. Place the bird feeder in a secure and safe location, avoiding areas where predators such as squirrels and raccoons can reach it, said Paul Oliver from Urban Nature Store.

When using paint outdoors choose something non-toxic such as Beam Paints, created by Anong Beam, an Indigenous paint-maker and artist who creates paint stones using hematite pigments harvested in the Lacloche Mountains on Manitoulin Island.

The pigment is blended with tree sap, gum arabic and Manitoulin honey, and is made fresh weekly in M’Chigeeng First Nation on Manitoulin Island/Mnidoo Mnising. Buy online at Articulations Art Supply in Toronto.