handmade jump rope

We attended the local Waldorf holiday fair.  In one room they have jump rope making!  K was able to pick his own colors, string them on a machine, and coil them into a jump rope.  He and his brother have been having a great time playing with the rope. 

Waldorf gnomes

Here are a couple of little gnomes K and I made in his mom/tot waldorf class. :) 

Dinner Candle

The boys and I are taking a waldorf parent tot class together every Tuesday.  I love the little crafts we get to do together.  This week we decorated a wax candle.  Its currently sitting on the nature table, but I hope to eventually use it as our dinner candle.  

Fall Nature Table.

Just a small peak at our fall nature table.

felted acorns

K and I are taking a parent tot class at one of our local Waldorf schools. We are right in-between two Waldorf schools so we have now taken a class at each of them. We are loving this one! The school is beautiful, they have chickens, a little shop, a huge garden, and a wonderful homemade playground. Anyway this past week we made felted acorns. K insisted we make one pink.

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. :)

Water swap sneak peek

This is my 2nd felted ball. I tried things a little differently this time. I first wet felted the ball, then needle felted the detail, then wet felted it again. One of the problems is that the roving doesn't really wet felt well. I think with the next one I will do a little needle felting to get a good shape and then wet felt.

Anyway the theme of the swap is water. These balls will be nice and squishy and would be great for playing in the pool. I now have about 10 days to whip out 4 more.

Also I have signed up for my first art fair! I'm joining a bunch of friends and taking out a table at the Ferndale DIY fair. I'm really excited but need to get busy making gnomes. I'm thinking I might make some simpler gnomes to go with my more elaborate gnomes. We'll see what I can get done in the short amount of time that I have.

Snail Bread

We made snail bread this week! I found the reciepe in the book, "Baking Bread with Children." First you make a wonderful pizza like dough with the pizza sauce baked right into. After rising you flaten it out and cover it with cheese. Then you roll it into a tube and slice. K had a great time making them and they actually turned out really tasty.

Star lantern

K and I spent the morning of the 4th painting and creating this star lantern. We got the pattern from Childhood Magic: http://childhoodmagic.blogspot.com/

She made the tutorial really easy to follow. Thanks!

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.

Knitted Elephant

I knitted K this elephant over the last couple of weeks. I love the yarn and hope to have enough to make another animal. Perhaps a rino or a hippo. So here is K's reaction to receiving the elephant.

Looking at the tail he says, "whats this?"

me - "a tail."

Looking at the legs he says, "whats this?"

me - "legs"

K - "oh boy" (said in a oh crap type of tone).

Happy Mother's Day

My new mother gnome holding her baby in a sling
Kalan painting a sign for mother's day

We spent this mother's day with family at our house. I made mother's day gnomes for both my mother and Casey's mother. The mother's are holding babies in slings. I love the way they turned out and now perhaps I'll attempt to make a baby backpack for the gnomes. :)

I hope everyone had a pleasant mother's day. My heart goes out to those that were not able to spend this mother's day with their child or their mother due to loss.

More May Day

I just realized I never posted our mayday celebration pictures. We were supposed to get together with a big group of friends to celebrate mayday on the 1st but we were rained out. We postponed the celebration for the 3rd and had a blast. Most of our kids are under 3 so we really had to help them with the pole (tree). We also made flower crowns and had a parade with singing, instruments, and paper butterflies. We ended the event with a large picnic. We all had a lot of fun and hope to celebrate more seasonal holidays together.

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.

Knitted Chicken

The other night while watching a little tv with Casey I knitted up this chicken. I just gave it to K and he is wondering around the house saying, "bocka bocka bocka." Silly boy.

Robin Hood Gnome

The other night I was inspired to make a fantasy gnome. He was really fun to make. I really want to make him a little companion gnome that has long hair. Its been a long time since I made a fantasy gnome for my etsy shop and now I keep thinking of all the possibilities. :)

Felted Ball

I've been racking my brain on what to make for my cousin's baby shower. I decided to try my hand at a needle felted ball. The inside has an easter egg with a bell in it so it rattles. I'm pretty happy about how it turned out. I got the idea for a felted ball from Living Craft Magazine. My husband just bought me all the back issues for my birthday and I am loving them! Its actually pretty overwhelming because I want to make everything.

Anyway I loved making this ball so much I'm thinking I need to make K one and then perhaps make a couple for Etsy. We'll see.

New Silks

These pictures do not do these silks justice. A few moms from my natural parenting group and I put together a big play silk order. We spent one evening dying them ourselves. Its a lot of work but totally worth it. I had done this on a much larger scale about 6 months ago and it took us 9 hours! There were around 15 moms and over 150 silks to dye. This time though with 4 ladies, 4 dye colors, and only around 30 silks we were done in just a couple of hours. I really wanted brown, green and white (not dyed), for our nature table. Then of course I could not resist that royal blue and the yellow.

I'm using these to line K's easter basket, so I'm sure after sunday I'll have some great photos of him playing in the silks.

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 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.