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Paper Butterfly Mobile


I have a door sized window next to my front door at the shop.  I tried curtains and random displays, but really wasn't happy with anything until I put together these bright and colorful paper mobiles.  They were super easy to make and I LOVE my window now!

Supplies needed:

Cardstock or construction paper in a variety of colors
Scissors
Butterfly punch or template
Hot glue gun
Thick string or yarn
Weight for the bottom of the sculpture (I used an acrylic crystal)


Make a loop on one end of your string and hang it from something high enough that allows you to work.  The length should be however long you want your sculpture to be.  Tie your weight onto the bottom of the string.


Cut various sized circles out of your paper and cut each circle halfway through.  Put a line of hot glue 1/4 of the way around the outside edge of the circle and pull the other side of the circle in to form a cone.





Using a template or a butterfly punch, cut out assorted butterflies.


Attach two different colored butterflies back to back, with your string in the center.  Fold the wings of the butterflies away from each other.



Attach 3 or more of the circle/cones to each other and to the string, keeping the string in the middle.



When you're done, hang it in and enjoy!


Let me know if you have any questions and feel free to share your own version of this project.  For the music paper sculpture that's also shown in the window, go here.





Worm Farming

I'm a HUGE fan of vermicomposting.  We do it on a small scale at home, although we did add an additional worm "house" to our worm farm recently (if you live in Peoria, Illinois and you want to get set up with a starter worm farm, just leave a comment with your contact information and I can set you up with the person who made our new farm.  The new one isn't pictured here). Today I just cleaned all of the dirt (dirt = worm poop) out, and replaced it with some shredded junk mail, egg shells, grape vines, etc.  Eventually, we're going to try building a new worm farm out of a 3 drawer plastic container.  Until then, this is our farm:


We don't use the spigot.  We keep enough dried leaves and junk mail in the mix that we don't get too much liquid.



Empty bin




First layer is a barely moist piece of newsprint, then we fill it with vegetable scraps, junk mail (nothing glossy), yard waste, egg shells, etc. ( no meat/protein)




I mix some dirt and some of the worm castings from a previous batch into this mix.



   Add worms - we started our worm farm with a pound of red wigglers.  Sometimes our worms do great and reproduce and sometimes they go to the big worm farm in the sky. This year we had to get new worms.


Small batches of household waste take about a month to turn into this!



It's worm poop.



AKA, a bucket of the best fertilizer ever for our garden.

Please let me know if you have any questions about the system we've been using!