fall nature table

Fall nature table

Corn husk dolls

Here are K and my first corn dolls.  I love K's little corn baby in the 2nd picture.  He was so proud to have done it himself (he just need a little help with tying).  We first soaked the dried out corn husks before shaping them into little people.  

New gnomes!

Its been quite a long time since I've made any new gnomes. My mom came over to help with the boys and I used the opportunity to make a few gnomes. :) The green one was a long overdue swap gift for a friend, the blue one was a new sister gift to a friend, and the sunny flowery one is our new summer gnome. I had a lot of fun sewing the flowers on his belly.

Spring Nature Table

Here is our Spring Nature table. K did the decorating this time around. We received the swaps, rainbow, knitted snail, and white basket in different swaps. I made the root children, felted bird, spring gnome, and chick. We received the snail puzzle, hedgehog puzzle, and snail candle holders as gifts from a good friend. :)

Oh K made the picture of the tree in the background.

Fall Nature Table.

Just a small peak at our fall nature table.

Summer Nature Table

I took this shot just before I started to switch over to our Fall table.

We collected some great feathers and acorns this summer, made shell candles, found water reeds, and a bee gnome. :)

Summer flies

I can not keep the flies out of our house. It is driving me nuts. K has been walking around telling the flies to leave the house. I think it means we need to fix some holes in our screens. Anyway I made this little fly for K to play with and to join our other summer creatures on the nature table.

Our Current Spring Nature Table

Pictures aren't too great. Sorry.

Spring Table Storage

What do you do with your spring table items that are out of season? When I first started my table (this past winter), I ran into this issue as I started to put items away. I didn't want to put them in a plastic tub. It seemed wrong to put all this time and effort into making all natural items and then shove them into plastic. So I made a big velcro bag for everything winter. Of course that now means I need to keep this up and make a bag for each season as needed.

You can see my winter bag is stuffed full as it contains all the holiday items also. So far spring only has our leprechaun gnome and some shamrocks.

Where do you store your nature table items?

Butterfly gnome gets a makeover

I sold my butterfly gnome the other day (yay!) and I've decided that as my gnome sell I will begin remaking them with the 100% wool. I really love working with this stuff. This is the updated butterfly gnome with the wool felt. The colors are a little different. Also are some pictures of K playing with the gnome as I was taking photos. I love that he instantly had to put that flower hat on. :)

Knitted Snail

I've recieved my final Spring swap item from my local group (one mom couldn't make it and had to bring her swap items over later). I love this knitted snail! He is sitting on our nature table right now, but I think I'll eventually add him to K's basket of animals to play with. This reminds me. I should take a new nature table photo. It has changed a lot since my last one.

Springster Holiday

Every year I host a spring/easter party for my family on the day before Easter. We always have a big picnic potluck (which usually ends up indoors as it did this year) and do a craft or two. This year we made yarn nests by dipping yarn in glue and draping it over a bowl. When it dries we can pop the nests out of their bowls. I'll have to post more pictures after the nests are dry and out of their bowls. We also filled egg shells with dirt and grass seed. I'm excited to see how they look when they have begun to grow.

Mushrooms

I think it is time to take a swap break! I've completed 5 mushrooms for spring themed swap in my local natural parenting group. This is their first swap so it will be interesting to see how it goes. I've really been loving the patterns in my crocheted food book (I think I posted the title earlier... if not I'll be back with the title).

Tonight I'm hosting my family's Easter/spring dinner. We're going to have a big potluck picnic and do a spring themed craft. I'll have pictures up soon. Now I have to run off and start cleaning, cooking, and preparing...

I swear this is my last post on root children

I just finished them today and they are being sent out for the swap tomorrow. I just love the way they all look lined up on the nature table. I made a couple of extras and am debating bet keeping them for myself and selling them on Etsy. I guess I'll just have to make more. Right? Ok this is the last time I will bother you with root children pictures. :)

The root children.

I have finished two of the root children. I have a few more in various stages of finished. Each of them has a removable coat so they can turn from a root child to a flower. They have been pretty fun to make and this is my first time working with all natural wool felt. I'm not sure that I can ever go back. :)

Spring table

Its kind of a mess right now and needs some organization. We still have dried flowers and such from winter hanging out. I've added my crocheted mushroom. I've also added some fun wooden beehives from Casey's Wood (an online wood sight). The flowers are actually one of my swap items that I recieved. See the little nest in the flowers?

Oh little tiny items near the front are Kalan's wet felted art and a piece of bark with moss that he collected with his grammy.

Ok hopefully I'll have the rest of the swap items up tomorrow. I left them in the room that K is currently sleeping in. So I can't photograph them quite yet.

The Root Children are on their way.

This is my spring gnome and my root child prototype on our nature table. I'm making root children for an upcoming swap and I swear I've made 20 prototypes. Each one has a removable coat and is wearing a plain brown outfit underneath. I'm not thrilled about the way the stitching turned out and Casey thinks he looks like a man instead of a child. So... I think I've finally figure it out. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll have my first finished root child. Oh and I've received my easter basket swap stuff. I'll post that tomorrow.

Needle Felted Bird

Ok I'm getting a little better at this. K loved the outcome of this bird. I made her just in time to sit on our wet felted eggs on the nature table. K keeps walking over to the nature table and going, "tweet tweet tweet." Its funny how much joy he gets out of that table for only being 1.5.

I think I'm going to try some farm animals next as I just found a wonderful wooden barn at a mom to mom sale. K has been having fun with it but it really needs a pig, cow, horse, and sheep.

I also have a crazy idea that some day in the future I want to make him a farm playscape to go with the barn. Something that combines knitting, crocheting, sewing, and felting. I'll get to it eventually. :)

Wet Felted Eggs

We tried our first go at wet felting. K did a great job of getting enough soapy water all over the floor that we have a nice shiny clean floor. We had a lot of fun, but boy do your hands get pruney. I attempted to make a nest for the eggs to sit in, although it didn't turn out quite like I wanted. Oh well. I'm excited that spring is around the corner and we can soon add these to our nature table.
Oh and that little felted chunk of wool? That was K's.

St. Patty Window Star

You'd think I was Irish. I'm not but, its a fun little holiday none the less. I have added a bright green window star to our nature table. It turned out way bigger then I thought!
Its been snowing all week here and for some reason my mind has moved to spring. Not that I'm not enjoying winter. I'm actually loving the snow. It's K that isn't fond of it. He can't stand snow touching his shoes. This poses quite a problem for outdoor play.
I'm off to watch the snow and think of spring gnomes.