Ojos de Dios

or 'God's eye' is a craft that I remember making as a child and always enjoyed for its beauty and simplicity. Originating in Mexico the Huichol people call their God's eyes 'Sikuli.' which means "the power to see and understand things unknown." When a child is born the central eye is woven by the father, then one eye is added for every year of the child's life until the child reaches the age of five. The result is a mysterious and magical object.

To make one you will need two sticks or branches and yarn or similar material that can be used for weaving.

Secure the two branches together with a knot from the end of your yarn.

Begin weaving the yarn around your sticks, looping round each branch.

The God's Eyes will grow and take form.

Here is the one I worked on - I weaved the yarn so that both sides are the same and there is neither a front or a back.

Mateo really enjoyed making these and was confident doing it without my assistance. He was very proud of his creation and instantly felt the magical pull of his God's eye and displayed it over his bed to protect him.

Check out this guys very impressive God's Eye here.

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Recycled Newspaper Baskets

Today in preparation for Easter on Sunday we weaved our very own baskets! I think this was a little over my 5 year old's head. Although he would check in on the basket's progress now and again to snip some paper and give a nod of approval it is probably more a project for children 8 years old and older.

We were inspired by this tutorial, however we made some modifications. For the project you will need: newspaper, scotch tape, duct tape, stapler, school glue and scissors.

The night before we weaved our baskets I prepared the newspaper into folded rolls. The folded rolls should be about 3/4in thick and you will need roughly 9 short folded rolls (approx 2ft. long), which will make up the ribs of the basket and a couple longer folded rolls (approx 4ft. long). I doubled up a couple of the shorter ones to make the longer strips. I then glued these strips and let them dry over night.

Start with your shorter newspaper rolls. Begin by weaving 4 strips together.

Keep on weaving till you have used all of the short strips. This woven surface will make the floor of your basket.

Start to shape the basket by folding the lose ends of the strips upward. Once you have folded each side you can then then weave the long strips through the 'ribs'. To keep my forming basket from unraveling I stapled one end of my horizontal strips on to one of the vertical strips (see above far left).

Keep on weaving and with a little patience a basket will begin to materialize. When the strip you are weaving runs out simply lengthen it by stapling another strip to the end.

When you are finished weaving, fold the ends over and staple or tape them.

Trim off any extra paper.

We added a strip of neon orange duct tape along the rim of our basket for extra durability and to keep the staples from poking out. We also added a handle made of duct tape for more efficient Easter egg gathering. Ribbon would also be beautiful, but we thought duct tape is just a more bit bad-ass.

Happy Merry Easter!

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