Walnut Shell Boats

little walnut shell boats

Back at the beginning of the year I read something about boats made out of walnut shells and I was really taken with the idea. My parents-in-law have a walnut tree and so we eat a lot of walnuts; sprinkled in salads with blue cheese and apple or teamed up with chocolate and raisins. I'd been keeping the shells for a while for Maya to use in her kitchen but really wanted to try this out too. 

One rainy day in August while Noah was sleeping we finally got our opportunity. We had a blast with this project. We cut the sails out of little bits of paper from her scraps basket then fixed them to the walnut shells using tiny balls of non-toxic play dough (you could use blue-tac or even glue). Our masts are cocktail sticks which we (mostly I) threaded the sails onto. 

I took the first two pictures but the last one is Maya's. She used a book from the library to set up the background for her shot and then placed the boats and their 'water' in front of it.