Welcome to the #CreateDesignDiscover Link-Up!
Scroll to the end of the post for the linky, and add your links to your awesome craft posts for us to share. All family friendly craft styles are welcome to link-up.
Creating Mushroom Prints
With a change in the weather, we are also suddenly seeing mushrooms everywhere. They are along the roadside, in fields, in the woods, and in our yard.
My son found a huge mushroom that was doomed to be run over with the lawnmower, so we pulled it up to examine it’s parts and make some easy art to add to the nature journal. First, my son had a lot of fun just examining the mushroom. He thought the underside looked like some type of weird sea creature.
After carefully breaking off the stem, he placed the mushroom cap on a piece of orange paper. We decided on a darker color of paper since the underside of the mushroom was light. Some mushrooms are darker underneath, and the print will show up better on light colored paper.
And then, we let it sit for an hour or so.
After slowly lifting the mushroom top straight up off the paper, we were left with a print!
How did that work?
Mushrooms have spores, which is what they use to reproduce. The spores are inside the gills on the underside of the cap. If you let the cap sit for awhile, the spores will be left behind on the paper, leaving a print. We think it turned out looking like fireworks, or a dandelion. What do you think?
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What a COOL idea…as usual you amaze me! We will be doing this one soon!
That is amazing!! We have so many of those sitting out in our yard right now, due to the rain. I’ll have to get creative with ours, too! 🙂
It’s fun to see what you can make out of nature finds.
The mushroom prints look so beautiful. I would not have thought of using a mushroom.
Thanks, Shelah!
We tried that before and didn’t get anything, but I think my kids were too eager and rough with their mushroom. Yours looks wonderful! I’ll have to try it again
It was trial and error for us. We found that using a darker color of paper helped it show up, and waiting till it dried out a little helped as well. You also have to be careful not to shake the mushroom around too much. Thanks for linking up your awesome craft!