in the shadows

A favorite Solstice tradition for our family is spending part of the long, dark night playing with shadow puppts. In years past we've purchased beautiful shadow puppets on etsy.

But inpsired by Zach's hand made monster shadow puppet last year...

I decided to try to make a set of our own this year. All it took was a little black card stock, an exacto knife, a safe surface to cut on (I used a self healing cutting mat), some tape, chopsticks or wooden skewers, and a little imagination.

We decided on winter scenes and wanted to keep it simple as the only thing more primitive than my drawing skills are my cutting skills. The snowman, the pine, and the sun tree I drew free hand, while the polar bear is from free clip art that I traced.

A little tape attached to a chopstick or skewer and voila!

Loads of unplugged, imaginative, family fun on those long winter nights.

If you want to check out some insanely gorgeous shadow puppets for sale on etsy, click on over to Isabella's Art. And enjoy the darkness :)