Thursday, February 10, 2011

Why Don't You Make Acorn Cap Jewels



It's no secret, we're big on acorns around here. I use them frequently in my Etsy store, Green Baboon Designs. We decorate with them during the seasons. The Boy uses them as "food" in his play kitchen. Yesterday we found another use for them - shiny acorn cap jewels.

You'll need:
Acorn caps
Elmers School glue
Markers
Rice, beans, playdough, etc - something to hold your caps secure.

Pick out your favorite acorn caps. We have an abundance on hand at any given time, collected from our outings to our favorite parks and forests in the autumn. Make sure the insides of the caps are free from dust and debris.

Using your markers, color the inside of each cap. If you want a bright, jewel tone for your finished acorn cap, color the entire inside leaving no space blank. If you want a pastel shade, don't press as hard, or worry too much about getting every little space covered:

(Yes - he's wearing the same shirt two days in a row. I sent him upstairs this morning to pick out his clothes and get dressed and this is what he came back down in.)

Once your acorn caps are all colored, place them in your rice, or beans, or play dough. We have rice that we're careful to only use with our crafts.


It's hard to see the marker, but it's there. It will be more noticeable once we're done.

Fill each acorn cap up to the rim with white school glue. We used Elmers.


Allow your acorns to dry over night. Ours needed close to 20 hours to dry completely.
When the glue dries it forms a hard enamel like coating over the colored part of the acorn cap, allowing the color to really shine through. The Boy called them acorn treasures. He's big into pirates, treasure, and all things jewel like.


We're using our jeweled acorn caps to play Memory. We made sure to make 4 of each color. We turn them over and take turns lifting two caps each until a match is made. The person with the most matches once all the caps have been turned over wins.

I foresee a batch of acorn rainbow "soup" in my future as well.

Cheers,
Simple Mama

16 comments:

  1. this is such a cute idea!! we always have a plethora of acorn caps about, too. they are just too grand!

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  2. What a fabulous project! Who know you could make such a fun little treasure out of acorn caps. I wish I knew where we can find some acorn caps.

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  3. Awwww. These are wonderful! Something I would have loved as a kid. ...Something I still love now. XD Thanks for sharing this!

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  4. Wow those are treasures! Looking forward to following your endeavors!

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  5. This is great -- I often wonder what to do with all the acorn caps the kids collect and bring home in their pockets!

    I'm a new follower as well :-)

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  6. Great idea! Love the beautiful colors.

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  7. My children think i am nuts, but I can't resist collecting acorns and when i can't find any the caps are too cute to pass up. Great idea for my collection.

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  8. this is awesome! can't wait to try it.

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  9. I saw a link to this from Crafty Crow and I'm so glad to find your blog! This is such a neat idea. I'm always wondering what to do with that bag of acorns in the garage. I think we're going to try this today.

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  10. what a lovely project! thanks for sharing!

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  11. My 6 year old son liked this idea and we planned to do it, but had no acorn caps readily available. But we had plenty of pistachio nut shells around and used them. He had fun making them with his Pop-Pop, and we put them in a pretty dish to help decorate our Easter table. Thanks for the easy and fun idea!

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  12. Just posted our go at this one on our blog with a link back to you. Thanks for such a fun, easy idea!

    Tracy at http://craptasticcrafts.blogspot.com/

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  13. We had a lot of fun making these this year--thanks for sharing the idea!

    vanessa

    www.sillyeaglebooks.com

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  14. We made these yesterday and they came out great. I added glitter to some of them and they are very pretty. Thank you for sharing this wonderful idea.

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  15. We made rings out of these and they turned out so cute

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