Blueberry Cork Prints

We're loving that blueberry season has arrived!

The last two weeks of our Summer CSA share have come with the opportunity to pick our own berries. So we've picked them, frozen them, baked them in muffins, cooked them in pancakes, topped them with vanilla frozen yogurt, added them to lemonade, and the adults even tested out a grown-ups only drink recipe. Of course, we've also eaten them by the handful and read about them. Two great blueberry themed books include Blueberries For Sal by Robert McCloskey and Jamberry by Bruce Degen.

We read Blueberries for Sal before heading to pick berries the first week and I loved Big Brother's connections to the story while we were there. He told me he was just like "Little Sal" because he was eating so many. He also really wanted to bring some home to "can for winter" and was a little disappointed when I informed him that we usually just freeze them. We read Jamberry at the berry patch the second week while munching on berries. 

With all the blueberry food fun, Big Brother and I thought it would be fun to do a blueberry themed project. I remembered seeing a project several years ago in a Martha Stewart Living magazine using corks to create blueberries and we decided to try it out. I cut small crosses into two corks and cut a small leaf shape into a third cork.

We used craft acrylic paint and white muslin. I taped the muslin to cardboard before we started printing. Both Big Brother and I worked on our own pieces. 

I found the printing went better if I blotted it first onto a paper towel. After we printed the berries we added leaves. 

Although it took some experimenting on my piece to get the images as I had envisioned, I really liked how it turned out. 

Big Brother was pleased with his work too. 

As the muslin was just scraps of fabric I don't have a plan as of yet about what we'll turn our printed fabric into. I think that this would be a really pretty design to create on canvas bags, fabric napkins, tea towels, or gift cards. The corks made it kid friendly as well, so kiddos could use this same idea to create teacher or grandma gifts. I'm currently envisioning a possible table runner . . .

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