Paper Dress/Tie: The Muir Woods

I'm not exactly an hiking or camping type of gal. As a family, we haven't been actively exploring what the nature has to offer in the bay area. After living in the bay area for almost 3 years, it took my best friend who was visiting from Taiwan to persuade me about visiting the Muir Woods with kids.

I was worried that kids will complain about the heat or the long walk. Surprisingly, it turned out to be an exhilarating experience on Memorial Day weekend. The kids walked on the trail with us for 2.5 hours, totally enjoying the fresh air and the exquisite scenery of red woods. Some of the red wood trees had been burned by random wild fire, however, they continue to grow strongly since the roots weren't hurt by the fire. Amazing!

This week, I had the idea of making a paper dress about the beautiful red wood trees which completely changed my view toward hiking. Little E and I started by wrinkling several pieces of origami paper - brown and green. Then we tore the paper into small pieces

 Little E started to glue the paper pieces on the 3 columns I drew on a piece of black poster paper.

We drew and cut leaves from another piece of darker green origami paper. 

Little E glued them on one by one.

At the same time, Big E is also working on a tie.

Here are the finished pictures! I also made a bigger tie for Daddy as a surprise!

Here is our 14th paper dress (and tie) made together - The Muir Woods!