All Things Shroomy

"They hardly felt the Autumn gales, and if it rained, the children crept underneath a giant toadstool to keep dry." - Elsa Beskow (Children of the Forest)


















Satch fancies mushrooms!
He loves hunting for them to make spore prints. I forgot all about spore prints until I saw them resurface on Crafty Crow. I used to make them on the sidewalk when I was a child...it was like kiddie graffiti. So, Satch and I went mushroom hunting and made a couple of prints. I like the prints so much that I'm going to frame them and perhaps make some note cards too.

*Spore prints should be a supervised project for young children who might put them in their mouth. Some information on poisonous mushrooms can be found here.

Since Satch is wild for shrooms, I purchased some unfinished wooden mushrooms from Sherry, a wood craft supplier on ebay. I tucked them away to paint together as a rainy day project. We'll use some of my photos for color ideas. There are also some wonderful photos here.

There is a lovely toy store called, A Toy Garden, owned and operated by mama, Sonya Bingaman. Her store sells a wide variety of beautiful and imaginative gifts for children. Satch is smitten with the wooden mushroom set carved from organic orchard wood. I hide them around the house and he hunts for them. They are so adorable you might want a set of your own to place on a shelf. Sonya wraps all the little goodies in brightly colored tissue paper (easy for wee hands to tear open) and ties them with beautiful, silky rainbow ribbon.

Another shroomy love is this mini book, "Children of the Forest" by Elsa Beskow. It's delightful story with classic elements of light and dark found in most fables and the illustrations are breathtaking. We love the spotted mushroom cap hats on the wee-folk!