Nature Inspired Creations

By Pebbles Richee

I like to craft creatures. I’ve been making them since the summer of 2021, and I tend to make imaginary creatures because they always end up slightly off, and if I try to make real animals, it tends to be a bit unsettling. However, I am pretty good at making weird little creatures straight from the whimsical shadow realm that is my mind. The creature below is one of my favorite creations. It started because I had a bit of wood that I carved into antlers, then I made the rest of the creature and put it in a pot, but it didn’t look proper yet, so I gave it a grotesquely long arm offering a nice little vase with some flowers in it. I think it’s a pretty perfect example of the kinds of creatures I make because it’s made with all of my creature crafting methods and has the combination of creepy and cute I try to have in all my creatures.

I feel like a creature isn’t complete without a home, and a way I like to do that is to make a scene once I’m done creating the creature. I like to fill the scenes with diverse plants to mimic nature. The best example of building a scene around a creature is my favorite craft I’ve made so far, which is pictured below. I also like to put creatures in containers, like the creature above.

I quite like crafting in nature, but when I craft in nature it’s different than when I’m crafting with my normal things. Whenever I’m crafting in nature, I only use natural materials that I found where I am, and sometimes I don’t use any tools except for my hands or maybe a rock. I also tend to make different things than I otherwise do. Instead of making creatures, I tend to make symbols and jewelry, especially triangles and tetrahedra. I also like to have nature in my room, and sometimes I do that by taking “weeds” from outside and planting them in a little container in my room. Other times, I make terrariums with moss and small plants from areas near trees. In general, the things I craft in nature are a lot more meaningful to me because they’re from nature.

I wear certain things as symbols. I have flowers I made to wear in my hair mostly because I like how they look, but I also wear them to represent the bit of me that belongs around plants. I also made wooden antlers that I wear. Those represent two things. They represent the bit of me from the woods and the fact that I’m trans. I also made a pair of earrings, one is a stone triangle and the other is a wooden tetrahedron. Those just represent protection. A big thing that all of those do is increase my aura of whimsy, which is very important to me because I require a lot of whimsy in my life to be happy.

Usually when I make stick triangles, I leave them out in nature because it feels right, but I kept this one for the blog. I also made a terrarium with some moss I collected. I used clay to stick it to the sides because the clay keeps the water in the soil instead of in the air, and I made it a sort of crater shape because I thought it looked cool. It’s in a clear plastic cup with a bit of trash for the top, and I tied it to the cup with yarn and fuzzy sticks to seal the moisture in. There were some problems balancing the moisture so that the moss didn’t dry out or get moldy, and by the time it got balanced, about half the moss had to be removed.

If you want to make things from natural materials, a very important thing is how to harvest materials correctly. It’s important that when you go out to collect things, you collect with nature in mind. Almost anything you find in nature is already serving a purpose. With plants, moss, and lichens, make sure you take from multiple areas and don’t take too much to make sure that after you leave, the plants, moss, or lichen is able to regrow and replace what you took. If you see a plant you either haven’t seen before or only see very rarely, don’t take any of it. It’s likely endangered, and by taking it you might be putting that entire species at risk. For bark, wood, or other plant materials on the ground, do the same thing and only take what you need and take from multiple areas to make sure that you leave enough habitats for the bugs that were living there. For rocks, don’t take all the pretty ones. That’s mean to whoever comes after you.

Once you have collected materials, just make whatever you feel like making. I usually don’t think much about what I’m doing and just go with my feelings, but you don’t have to do the same.

Thanks for reading!