Travel Swap

We received this great yo-yo ball that K loves.
These are homemade motion sickness drops. I always get carsick so I'll probably be testing them out on our next road trip.
This awesome book came with a little wooden man that gets go on many adventures though out the book. This one was made by one of my friends!
Here are one of the pages of the book.
I could hardly get this felt play mat away from K to photograph it. It also came in a little pouch.

I received my items from the travel swap. I had made Gnome homes with changes of outfits. We received some great things. Not pictured are some homemade stickers that K ran off with. :) I'm taking a little swap break so I can make a few things for K's birthday. Hopefully I can get some pictures up soon of what I've been working on.

Estate Sale find

Crocheted flowers
This is in the middle of the tapestry
Well shoot I thought I could flip these photos in this program and there is some bug in my photo program that is preventing me from flipping this. UGH. Sorry. :( Anyway the tapestry shows the four seasons.
Crocheted flowers and an embroidered little cloth.

K and I were garage saleing (which he loves to do) when I came upon these gems. This woman had so many hand crocheted and hand embroidered things that it was hard to chose what to bring home. The sale was coming to an end so they were practically giving everything away. The giant seasonal tapestry is not totally finished which I'm actually excited about. I think it will be fun to add to her work.

Lemon Balm

I planted tons of herbs this year and now that they are going crazy I need to figure out what to do with them. Right now my lemon balm is out of control. I found this great reciepe that calls for half apple juice, half lemonade, crushed lemon balm, and crushed mint. It made the most wonderful drink! We also made lime frozen yogurt which was probably the best frozen yogurt I've made since we've gotten the ice cream maker. All that was in it was lime, sugar, and yogurt.

Anyone have any ideas on what to use all this lemon balm for?

Father's day

I know. I'm a little late. We spent our father's day at Detroit's Modern Art Museum. They had an awesome family day including making sun prints, making terrariums, and raw food tasting.

Later we headed to the woods so we could float boats again. We also had a great time at the local park sliding down the turf on cardboard. :)

Sailing our boats

Today K and I went down to a local playground that has a trail and creek running through the back of it. We found a nice spot along the creek and sailed our two little boats. The rainbow one is from a swap and the blue one is from a garage sale. We tied yarn onto the backs and watched them float down the creek. K loved pulling his boat out and throwing it back into the water.

scented playdough

K and I made scented playdough. The yellow is tangerine. The red is pepermint. The green is eucalyptus. The blue is rosemary. K had a great time playing with them while I made dinner. I used the recipe from the busy kids book.

Herbal Swap

I hosted the Herbal Swap yesterday. It went really well and we had so many great creations! I received so many fun things including soap, milk bath, bath salts, hot/cold pad, hand sanatizer, and lots more. We made it potluck style and the kids ran in and out of the house while we traded our goods. :)

Playing with letters

Today we played with beanbag letters. I made these for K for Christmas but haven't taken them out to play with since. K has been interested in letters lately so I figured it was time to get them out. As we pulled out each letter K asked if he could wear them so that's just what he did.

Herbal goodies

My mom came over and helped me make two fun goodies. We made bug spray and deodorant. I haven't tried either yet but am planning on trying the deodorant tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes. Here are the recipes I used for both:

http://angrychicken.typepad.com/angry_chicken/2008/07/homemade-deodor.html

http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/newsletter/07/june/insect.php

I'm hosting an herbal swap tomorrow and plan on trading 5 of each of them. I'll post the goodies I receive and hopefully some pictures of the swap. I'm excited to host my first swap and hope everything goes well.

Rainbow Swap items

We received a boat, snack bag (which K has been carrying around the house), a bookmark, a crown (modeled above), and a window star.
While we were away we received our rainbow swap items. They are wonderful! K's favorite by far is the crown. I'm really surprized by this as he usually won't put anything on his head, but he keeps bringing it to me to put on him.

Meijer Gardens

K nesting in the children's tree fort.
K playing with boats in the water shaped like Michigan's great lakes.
K climbing one of the many sculptures
The door to the children's garden.
The indoor conservatory

On the way home from the beach we stopped at Meijer Gardens. I love this place! It has a wonderful children's garden and miles of property to rome filled with amazing sculptures. we were really lucky with the weather. When we pulled in it was pouring rain. We looked around at the art galleries and conservatory inside and just as we finished the rain stopped. By the time we left it was blazing hot out. We've been to the gardens once before, but K was only crawling at the time. It was nice to see him acutely get to interact with everything this time.

Back from the beach

K's foot steps and he races down the beach
America's only working real windmill from Holland. We toured this windmill while on Windmill Island. Their current Miller is America's first women miller.
K exploring the local museum
Our crazy sand castle
While walking through the woods we stumbled on this fawn.
We spent this past week on Lake Michigan playing in the sand and exploring the near by city. We rented out a house with 4 other families with children K's age. We had a great time! All of my crafting took a back seat while I was gone so it might take a few days to really get posting again.

Gnome Homes

I joined a travel toys swap and decided to make these gnome homes. Each home has a little gnome in a bed and two changes of outfits. This project has been traveling all over with me so I could get it done in time. I'm happy to say it's finished and in the mail. I'm also making one for K that is a little more elaborate. I'll post when its done. This is probably my last post for awhile again. See you soon!