Making butter

 I got a great new book for Christmas on how to make butter, yogurt, and cheese.  It kind of goes through them in lessons that build upon each other.  The first was making butter (and buttermilk of course).  It was super fun to make.  Next time I want to have a mold ready so my butter can have a fun shape.  Also I realized afterwords we probably should have salted it as we mostly just used it to butter bread.  The top picture I'm kneading the butter in the most wonderful clay pot my dad and his wife gave me for Christmas.  :)

sunb bread

We haven't been making as much homemade bread lately.  Which is too bad because I love homemade bread.  Anyway we made this sun bread on the shortest day of the year to welcome the sun back. 

stockings

 I made our family Christmas stockings this year.  As you might notice they match L's new pants. :)  I used the fronts of the sweaters to make the stockings.  The letters are made from wool felted sweaters that I blanket stitched on.  I love the sweaters that still have the buttons on them. :)

kid swap

K entered a little swap for himself.  He was paired up with another 3 year old and they each made each other a Christmas ornament.  K made this wool felted dragon lantern.  He received a wool felted sushi and gingerbread man.  They were really sweet. :)

construction bin

Here is my 2nd sensory bin.  Its construction themed.  We've now had it for probably 2 months and K is still playing with it.  Some friends of mine are talking about swapping our bins so we can have new ones more often.  I think its a grand idea. 

suckers

 I made my first suckers!  Boy was it easy.  We made a whole ton of batches in all different flavors.  The butterscotch was my favorite.  We also made enough to enter them in a local candy swap.  We got back homemade gumdrops, marshmallows, truffles, and more.  I have to say the homemade vegan marshmallows were my favorite.  I just bought the supplies to try and make my own. 

Another Herbal Swap

I hosted another herbal swap at my house.  Everything was so wonderful!  I made headache tea and calcium tea.  Some of the things we received were diaper spray (I've already used it all), lotion bar (smells so good!), cleansing grains (gave this one to my husband), elderberry syrup (kept my from catching the kids' colds), and bath tea (I'm saving this for when I have a bigger bath tub). 

Pants

Its been a really long time since I've updated.  These next few posts will probably be all over the place and in no order.  So over Christmas I made a whole bunch of pants for the boys.  Well mostly just L.  I can't remember which I've posted and which I didn't but here they all are.  They are all made from the sleeves of sweaters.