Brave Archery Event in Pasadena

We had so much fun making necklaces last Sunday. I could tell some of the kids had never used a rubber stamp in their lives. Oh the things we take for granted. For an ink pad I had one made for metal. It was a deep brown color. Even though I bought it some time ago it was wrapped in plastic and super saturated. Now I'm a big fan of buying ink pads wrapped in plastic. I put brown paper on the table, so the kids could try out the stamp on the paper first before stamping it on the leather. I probably gave out 50 necklaces and only 2 came out so poorly I let the kids make another one.  Usually they thought they had to press really hard.  But leather is spongy and requires a light touch. After the child stamped the art, I punched a hole with a leather hole punch, pulled the string through with a crochet hook, made a lark's head knot, and strung a bead on each end.  I let the kids choose their bead color out of a little bowl I had made of pine needles.

Unfortunately I was too busy working to take photos of the kids making the necklaces. But here are some photos of the event.

Stamping on Leather

It's been a busy last two days. I made 2 leather pouches, all sewn by hand.  Then at the last minute I decided to do a make and take for kid's at tomorrow's Brave archery event in Pasadena. I thought kids 7 and over could handle stamping on a bit of leather and making a necklace out of it. I was just going to make one or two stamps, and then I ended up making 6.

Cat paw print, lightning, arrowhead, star, bow and arrow, moon

The pouches are done except for some sort of fastener, and optional beadwork. I was so excited about doing a pouch demo, and then I got more excited about the kid's having something they could take home as a memento, like a necklace.  I'll still display the pouches, but I'll need to help the kid's assemble the necklaces. Unless someone volunteers to help me, but I think most of the other Paleoplanet guys are going to be working on bows.