04/23/2018
A gift to Mom

“ The best projects we do at Acorn Village, are the ones where we use only materials from the land, throughout the whole project.

While at the Santa Ynez Valley Botanic Garden, we connected twigs from the ground, carved and sanded the twigs to make handles for our new paintbrushes.
We then found some yucca growing on the hill at the garden. We harvested some leaves from the yucca and pounded them with rocks into strong fibers. The next task was to separate and dry the fiber. The fiber became new bristles in our paintbrush, which we will attach with some yarn and waterproof glue.

After that, we are going to search for some cochineal beetles on the prickly pear behind the Botanic Garden, and we will scrape those off to paint with.

The children will make lovely Mother’s Day cards with our handmade brushes, to go with the salve we are making with beeswax and plantain, also harvested partly at the SYV Botanic Garden.
This project is so wonderful.
Enjoy a few of our pics from our paintbrush prep.”

Photos and writing, provided by Tracy Roberts