Found Object Nature Art

Found Object Nature Art is one of the first kid activity posts I ever wrote. I saw duct tape bracelets on another blog and was inspired to try something similar with Aiden {then almost 2}. He did not like the duct tape bracelet so I turned it into art instead. Read on for a peak into our adventure collecting nature finds. 

Use Duct Tape Bracelets to Collect Nature Finds

I made duct tape bracelets with the sticky side out – one for Aiden and one for me.  Aiden did not like the duct tape bracelet on his arm.  I’m not sure if this was because the edges stick to your arm {fix this by folding the edges over} or if he simply didn’t want to wear the bracelet.  So I wore two bracelets.

It took Aiden a little while to actually want to put anything on my bracelets.  He enjoyed taking off the things I put on {see those little berries – he loved those}.

I’m trying to get him to put the berry on the bracelet.  No success.  He carried it for a while. Then, he threw it somewhere.  So fun!

Do you see the cool lichen in the picture below?  Aiden was excited to add that to the bracelet.

He eventually got the hang of it and liked putting things on my bracelets.  Although he was a bit upset when the big red flower remained stuck on the bracelet.  He wanted that one back!

I’m not exactly sure how we convinced him to put in on the bracelet in the first place!

Is he adding or taking away?  He’s taking off those little berries again.

We had a super fun time collecting things.  Aiden always loves to collect things on our walks.  Notice the sticks he’s holding?  Sometimes we collect things in buckets or our pockets.  The duct tape bracelet is a great twist.

Turn a Duct Tape Bracelet into Found Object Nature Art

When I originally saw Jade’s post (from The Letter 4), I immediately thought about how I could turn this idea into a cool art project.

I cut apart the 2 bracelets and taped them together.
Then, I added another longer piece of duct tape to the bottom.

To the empty piece of duct tape, I placed one of the sticks Aiden collected – it had a neat little air plant attached to it.  I also placed some more berries and some pine bark we picked up.

I’m not quite sure this turned out to be the amazing work of art I thought it could be in my head.  Although the process was definitely worth our effort. {Process is always more important the product with kids.}  Aiden loved placing the objects on the tape and we got a really neat product out of it.  Obviously, all of the living parts are going to die.  So, I took pictures of the nature art.  I thought playing around with the photos in Photoshop might make it cooler.

Here’s what I came up with.  What do you think?

I added various filters.

I like the underwater filter below.

For this one, I played with the Threshold…kind of cool.

 And these next three, I used different gradient maps.

For this last one, I just adjusted the colors a bit.

What do you think?  Which one is your favorite?

Have you ever made duct tape bracelets to collect nature finds?

 

 

This post was originally written on Nov. 14, 2011.