On a trip home to Spokane, Washington, my friend Kate found an amazing, handmade mouse house at an estate sale. The house a transformed wooden box - probably an old gift box whose striped interior may have inspired the creation of the domicile. I imagine that a grandmother lovingly made the house for her grandchild, carefully sewing the mice (and a rabbit and small bear) tiny clothes (with trimmed hats and changes of clothes), wrapping little boxes in tinfoil and labeling them "peanut butter," "sugar crystals" and "ham sandwich," and constructing a canopied bed and vanity protruding from the wall. She found the tiniest painted china tea set I've ever seen to sit on a little sideboard, and included a set of metal outdoor furniture, and bunches of flowers for a garden. There’s even a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket and a tiny Christmas wreath for seasonal celebration. I wanted to share this little treasure with you. It’s not perfect at all - and so it's such a relief from holiday expectations. Maybe it will inspire you to make your own, imperfect and magical miniature home for (or with) a child.

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This week I had the opportunity to try some plaster wall color from American Clay. Their colored plasters are marketed as a natural alternative to traditional house paints (though writing “traditional” to refer to latex paint instead of plaster feels silly - colored plaster is what people rich enough to afford color on their walls used for most of civilized history).

The product is intriguing. I love the timeless, worn look of colored plaster, and I’m actively trying out as many non-poisonous wall-coloring products as possible. Colored plasters bypass the off-gassing issues of conventional paint.

American Clay suggests that homeowners do not apply the products themselves but instead hire "artisans/applicators who have experience" using their products. Applying the sample colors to the tiles the company sent wasn’t hard - an imperfection is part of this look. But perusing the reader questions on the American Clay website will help you decide if you have the patience and ability to do this job yourself.


The plaster comes dry; you mix it with water until it’s “the consistency of pudding” and then smooth it onto the wall with a trowel. It stays moist for a long time (hours, in my climate) so you can take your time applying the color and rework any mistakes. The tiles the company sent me to try the colors on were quite rough, which made it easy to adhere the appropriate thickness of plaster. I wondered if they’d stick to painted walls as well, so I tried the plaster out on my own walls (I then wiped it off with water - no permanent damage) and it wasn’t much harder to get the right coating on the wall. But the application process detailed on the company's website is more complicated than just smoothing on the plaster. Most walls will need a base coat of special sanded primer. And there are a variety of finishing techniques that the final coat can be treated with for many different looks.

I tried three styles of plaster, Porcelina, Loma, and Marittimo. They vary primarily in the fineness of their grain. The color range is limited, but beautiful. None of the colors are too clean (“clean” colors, without a variety of pigments, often look tinny and wrong, while colors with a variety of pigments in them change slightly in different lights and look much more natural). Any of American clay colors will look beautiful in a home.

The Porcelina finish plaster is fairly simple to apply oneself. It smoothed on easily, and settled into a lovely matte finish. But the thicker and chunkier Loma and Marittimo, because of their higher sand quantities, are harder to work with. They are thicker and rougher. Their look is also more specific. I wouldn’t put them in a home that wasn’t built of adobe. But the finer Porcelina plaster would look nice in any home, especially one with 14-foot ceilings in Italy.


The look of colored plaster is not equivalent to paint. It’s much less perfect. It’s rustic. The texture of any of these three finishes would be at home in an adobe-walled home in the Southwest, or in California. I’d also recommend any of the finishes for a home lacking significant architectural details. Plaster color can give a new home a feeling of substance and permanence. But if you live in an older home with molding, pieced doors, and Victorian or Arts and Crafts details, only the Porcelina finish would compliment your home. And then, you’d need to be careful to finish it quite smoothly.

American Clay also provided me with some straw and some mica to add to the plaster. I love the mica - it gives a nice sheen which would be lovely in a dark living room. The straw is a nice touch for historic renovations, where the look of horsehair plaster, or plaster with straw is sought. When I remodel an eighteenth-century tavern (let me dream, please), I’ll use this!

Finally, you should be aware that these finishes are not as durable as paint. If you dampen a rag to wipe crayon off the wall, the plaster rubs off with it. Apply only after your children have outgrown the need to color your walls.

Overall, I’d recommend the Porcelina plaster by American Clay as a good substitute for conventional paint. You can order a kit of samples to try out from the company website, and find someone who sells it, too. The finish is beautiful, and, if you have the time and inclination to do it yourself, application seems fun. And if you're building a new home in Taos, you need to hire a starving local artisan to apply this for you - your street cred depends upon it.

A reader emailed me to ask for suggestions for green holiday decorations, hopefully ones that she could make by recycling stacks of catalogs and magazines piling up. My mailbox has also been fuller than normal. Here are a few options for decorations you can make with those stacks of shiny colored papers.

Magazine Bead Garland

I first marveled at this paper craft at age five, when I would pour though my big 1970s craft book. It’s a great alternative to popcorn and cranberries--you won’t eat the craft materials, and the garland will last for years to come. I've also seen crafters use paper beads to make bowls and toys, so you could make paper-bead gifts for everyone on your list, if you're inspired.

Materials: Magazine pages; scissors; glue; toothpicks; fine string, thread, or fishing line; extra craft beads for decoration

Instructions:

• Cut strips from magazine. You cam measure them into perfect rectangles, which will make tubular beads, or cut them into long triangles, the length of the page, which I think make for more interesting beads.
  
• Starting with one end (the wider if you’re cutting triangles) of the picture, put a dab of glue on the outside (side to be rolled over).


• Roll the strip around the toothpick. The glue will hold the center together and the toothpick will allow room to string the beads together later.


• At the last 1/4 inch of the roll, put a dab of glue on the underside of the paper. This will keep the roll from coming apart.


• Remove toothpick and allow to dry.


• Repeat with other strips.


• String the beads, alternating between round craft beads and long magazine beads, onto a piece of string, thread, or fishing line.

Origami Garlands and Ornaments

I love the tradition of folding and stringing origami cranes for good luck. And there’s not need to buy special paper to make them. Use your junk mail, and string them as a holiday garlands, or using them individually as ornaments. See this site for great illustrations on many folds.

Wrapping Paper and Envelopes

This may seem too obvious, but magazines make attractive free wrapping paper for small boxes. (My sister and I try to one-up each other with clever links between wrapping and gift.) Use the paper shredder to turn magazines into pretty stuffing for boxes. You can also fold pages up to make one-of-a-kind (almost) envelopes. Use a glue stick to easily stick the envelope together.

Collage and Cards

If you like to collage or make cards, you may find it helpful to think of the catalogs or magazines not as images, but as fields of color that you can cut up and use as you would any sort of pretty paper. If you have one, set a bored child down with stack of catalogs, some scissors, and have them cut out and sort snippets of each color, making stacks of red, orange, yellow, etc. Collages made from these rips look especially interesting.

Do you have any other favorite paper-recycling holiday crafts?