Ocean Diorama for Homemade Christmas

I’m pretty sure that our Tia Tata doesn’t read this blog, so I think we’re fine, but

IN CASE YOU’RE TIA TATA, LOOK AWAY IMMEDIATELY!

Okay, that said, all the rest of you can get a preview of one of our homemade Christmas presents. It’s a diorama for our friend Tia Tata, who is a social worker, marine biologist and diver (she founded and runs Dive Kulture, just so as you know, a fantastic program for inner city kids here in Boston). So of course it had to be of the ocean.

Amie was all for it, and she adores the word “diorama”. We sat together many afternoons drawing and coloring and cutting out  fishes, gluing together an octopus and several more fantastic creatures.  They’re hardly  anatomically correct – we’ll make it also a learning experience  next time around.  We selected a box and painted and decorated it, then played some, of course, and then put it all together.

Except for the glue and paints, some of the paper and the googly eyes (which were a gift from my mom), the whole thing is made of stuff that was bound for the recycling bin or the trash. Just like our Manush house way back when.

Here are the results (Tia Tata, if you are still reading, look away now). Click for larger images.

So much fun! Now, with me falling sick we’ve also fallen behind on our present-making… We’ll have this week and the next to make up!