Homemade Nature-Loving Gifts

We had a great Christmas this year, and one of the highpoints for me was the number of handmade gifts given. My brother made a number of beautiful wood gifts, and I gave calendars made using my nature photos. But the coolest gifts of all were made by my 11-year-old.

We had made a collage of her artwork while I was working on the calendars so that we could frame it and put it in the hall. Here it is.

Disaster struck as we were hanging it, and the frame broke. But here is my younger daughter’s collage framed. Older Daughter’s will look like this as soon as we replace the frame.

I love the cardinals passing a sunflower seed in Younger Daughter’s collage! Her osprey is really good too.

But back to the subject of Christmas gifts. Older Daughter has done some drawing of birds with her grandfather, so we made a mug that featured her collage as a present. It turned out spectacular, with the colors showing vividly against the mug’s black background. He loved it.

She also surprised my husband and me with framed drawings of our favorite birds. His is a peregrine falcon:

Mine (currently) is the red-breasted nuthatch.

Last but not least, she created a nature newsletter to pass out to our extended family. We made some and mailed them to grandparents last year, but it’s been awhile. This was her idea, and she did all the writing. I helped her a bit with Publisher and supplied some pics, but it really represents her creative effort.

We’re proud of her, of course! And as both mom and teacher, I’m amazed at the way our emphasis on nature study starting last year has opened up such a deep response in both girls. When she wanted to create something personally meaningful as a gift for loved ones, Older Daughter’s thoughts went reflexively to the natural world. One of my hopes for her is that she’ll never lose that sense of wonder.