On a recent gloomy afternoon, we headed one hour west from our home in Berkeley to the calm seashore of Tomales Bay. Tomales Bay is famous for their oysters but as it turns out, has quite a nice collection of driftwood as well. My eldest took in the scenery and my youngest kept me on my toes with his attempts to swim in the frigid waters (with his clothes on), and both were enthusiastic for my driftwood scavenger hunt. I had this very project in mind.

A Nature-themed Mobile

Step 1: Collect driftwood and allow it to dry out back at home. This could take up to a week. A hair dryer can speed up the process.

Step 2: Spray paint the driftwood or keep it natural if you prefer that look. I choose black. Children 6 and over are capable and more than willing to help with this step.

Step 3: Use bright or metallic paint to paint stripes in various thicknesses onto the driftwood. I used silver screen printing ink since that is what I already had lying around but acrylic paint would work well too.

Step 4: Collect feathers or use the craft-store variety to plan out your design. I choose natural-toned feathers with just two bright yellow ones to add some pop.

Step 5: Heat up your glue gun. Make a ring of glue on the driftwood and lay twine into the hot glue. Add more glue and wrap the twine several times around so it is strong.

Step 6: Repeat step 5 to complete the structure of your mobile.

Step 7: Using bird twine (very thin), attach one strand to each feather. I put hot glue along the stem of the feather and set the twine in the glue and held it until it was cool enough to stay in place. If you tie the twine onto the feather stem, the feather will not hang vertically.

Step 8: Attach the feathers with bird twine onto the mobile by tying knots.

Hang from the ceiling and enjoy!

Lisa Fontaine is the creative force behind the blog Picnic. To see more of her work click

here

and

here

. Thanks for the beautiful post! -Heather