Snails Diorama

Snail Habitat Diorama

          Hi friends first of all Thank you so much for the supportive comments on my last post where I confessed to struggling to manage my online presence. I am staying away from Facebook and put in my resignation from DT commitments [No I didnt have a ton of DT commitments  but just one!] and it does seem to have done wonders to ease the pressure.
          My regular readers will be used to seeing occasional "weird" blogpost headings from me isnt it ...? well you guessed right this Snail Habitat Diorama was made for my daughter to take to school.

Clay Snail

          My daughter is in 4th grade now and they are learning about snail habitats. They were asked to try and bring snails to class.Though I am very squeamish about anything slimy and crawly, like a dutiful mom I ventured out into our garden, the marshy neighborhood locations and even a nearby lake to search for the little snails!My daughter was so disappointed we couldnt catch any snails but cheered up considerably when I agreed we could make a 3 D diorama instead to take to school! 

Snails School Project

             I cut up a large flat piece of cardboard , scored , bent and glued it to form the diorama base with a tall background  to accommodate all the snippets of information we had printed about snails. There was no time for proper painting so I had to speed things along by whipping out my green spray paint bottle to cover the kraft colored cardboard base!
            Any garden needs a fence...albeit hurriedly constructed and a bit lopsided!!The glittery grassy bushes winding along our garden was die cut from foam [ foam has more body than paper and super easy to glue erect using hot glue]

Habitat Diorama

        A garden needs a few critters and my daughter added a golden foam dragon fly on the grass and of course she wanted her garden to have a bicycle just like her real one in pink and blue!

Habitat Diorama

The flowers in the garden were made using Heartfelt creations Botanical wings- rose die stamp set and they were stuck on a 3 D bush we made out of thick cardboard

Spellbinders Gate

I debated whether the golden gate was too stylish for our humble garden but I couldnt resist adding it!

Handmade Clay snail

           My 9 yr old made all the snails using air drying clay and real snail shells we had found at the lake bed . I think you will agree her clay snails turned out rather well with their cute tentacles and tiny eyes! Snails secrete a slimy trail to help them to slide along and my daughter was delighted our faux slime made using the glue gun turned out super!

Snail Habitat

           Land snails love cool damp places and so we added a small pond [using textured foam] in the garden and you can see 2 snails enjoying themselves in it! The purplish black heap you see on the bed of the pond is foam putty ...love how it looks like pebbles and the brown rock was sculpted by my daughter using clay.[You can see more foam putty projects here : Altered Heart tutorial and Texture Media Experiments] She also colored the Memory box spring border die cuts we added to our diorama.

Fairy

       And here is a closeup of  the  little fairy who keeps the little snails company ! And yeah our snails's garden habitat has lots of butterflies fluttering about!

Snails School Project

          Our Snail Diorama was an extremely hurriedly put together project but my daughter loved it and was thrilled she had something to take to school!!

         The funny thing was the next day morning my hubby was able to find quite a few real snails wallowing in the rain drenched mud just outside our home!! My daughter's excitement knew no bounds  at being able to take a 3 D project as well as real snails to school! And yes both were a huge hit in her class!!

Supplies : Dies : Spellbinders Guilded Gate, Spellbinders Alphabets,Spellbinders Label , Spellbinders frame, Spellbinders beaded Oval, Sizzix Grass, Memory box spring border ,Marianne Fence, Cheery Lynn  dragonfly,Cheery Lynn  bicycle, Sizzix scallop oval, Provocraft butterfly, Sizzix Butterfly stamp - die set, Heartfelt creations Classic Leaf . Heartfelt creations Botanical wings- rose die stamp set,  Memory Box fringe border, ECD Oval accordion. 
Stamps : Hero Art Butterfly rubber stamp, Heartfelt creations Botanical rose- wings rubber stamps
Fairy - gift from my friend Angelin