Bliss Beyond Naptime

It's Just Not in My Nature. Table.

Is it obvious by the stretchy attempt at a punny post title I'm suffering from a head cold? The whole family's afflicted but if you had to have a cold this is the one to get. Feels like a cleanse in a way and even though we're sick enough to stay inside, and not be too industrious lest we over exert ourselves, the energy levels are just right for lots of what we like to call cuddle puddles on the couch and quiet activities that have that apres ski like vibe I love like board games, knitting and lazy day crafts;

Like setting up the nature table!

Typically we take down the advent garden and Nativity scene on January 6, day of Epiphany, which we did and then I would set up the winter nature table for the kids to wake up to. This year, Edie was really excited about participating and trying her hand at needle felting. So, even though I'm uptight about her playing with pokey, tetanus-laden objects, I obliged and, miraculously, she didn't hurt herself and the whole experience was a magical, collaborative affair. Together we basked in the periodic sun bursts that have been far and few in between these days, laughed at our duck/snowman hybrids and drank loads of licorice tea to keep our sore throats at bay.

I would love to see your nature table by the way. Or let me know what's lurking on yours for we need some inspiration to add some more oomph to it over the next couple of months. Leave a link to any pictures you may have floating in the blogospheres in the comments below if you feel so compelled and enjoy the video tour while I cleanse out my nose for the 100th time this morning!

 

 

Lose Tooth and Loose Change

My little girl lost her first tooth! It's been woobley for a few weeks now and ridiculously wobbley on the weekend. So I pleaded with her to keep it in her head until I was done whipping up a loose tooth cozy to help the tooth fairy to find it (of course, the Tooth Fairy is pretty wiley at finding teeth under kids' pillows but let's make things a little easier for the busy lady!).

Edie told me she'd try her best and then that evening I was reading on the couch while I was waiting for her to get into bed so we can read the next chapter of Ramona the Pest  when I heard this sproing! And then the wail; "Maaaaa-maaa!". I knew by the sound effects what had happened. When I walked into her room I saw a mildly traumatized little girl, pointing at her face crying that her tooth flew out while she was flossing and it felt weird. Thank goodness for Rescue Remedy. I know it helps me with the trauma of things, namely children, come sproing-ing out of my body.

So we put the sweet, perfect tooth away in my studio buying me one more night to quickly needle felt away on the tooth pouch that will rest on the door handle, cradeling the first evidence of her shedding her child form. Crazy! I never cried when my kids were born like I thought I would but seeing the first tooth erupted I lost it. With the lost of this tooth I didn't bawl like I was imagining I would but I did get somewhat misty eyed.

As for the pouch, I used the instructions from this book I've had for eons. Edie was always enchanted by the picture of it in Complete Feltmaking which happens to be perhaps my favorite ever felting how to book. So sweet, the fairy's bag is where the tooth/goods transaction happens.

And the goods? Lady Tooth Fairy slipped in a looney, a tooney and a teeny weeny crystal angel (for internationals readers, a looney= $1; tooney=$2). What to do with all this hard, cold cash now? We haven't officially introduced the concept of money to her yet so I saw this a fitting opportunity to bring Miss Piggy the Bank into her life. I found her this weekend while having Momma time in an antique shop. While I was dusting her off when I brought her home I explained to Edie we will put these special gifts into Miss P the B until she is full, then we will undo the secret latch under her belly (aka as packing tape), count out the coins and she may spend the money as she wishes. Or put it away in a grown up bank for something uber special; whatever she wants. Pretty sweet, she ran off and grabbed the toonie that was tucked into a Halloween card from Grandpa and Grandma, and slipped it in too. And then placed Miss Piggy the Bank in the perfect spot on top of her dresser. Everything's magic like that in a little girl's world!

Puntastic Giveaway

 

 

I'm basking in the glow that is my mom's visit! She is organizing my mason jar lids as I type ~ bliss! I'm also taking advantage of her bonding time with the kids to get a head start on some crafting projects I've had tucked away in the darker recesses of my idea book for ages now. One of them is a wall hanging to darken the kids' rooms from bright as day bedtimes and way too early wake ups. Right now we're using flannel blankets that's a little more shabby than the shabby chic I'm going for.

Now with jar lid sorting has been taken off of my daily to do list my brains have been freed up to come up with many, many more puns. I'm a pun making machine - a pundit. A corres-pun-dent. An entre-pun-eur. Which brings me to peel back and expose my latest nerdy layer. Are you ready for this? Brace yourself:

Have you ever heard of Fiverr? It's the place where people share what they would do for $5. Brilliant! I couldn't resist, I had to play along. I thought to myself while my mom was colour coding my tuperware containers; "hmmmmm... what could I offer for five bucks?" and so I listed my pun making services.

Yes, you too can have a punny blog post title for five bucks! Yes, I realize what an uber nerd I am but I always love a good pun challenge. We'll see who bites.

And here's my window cover about 80% complete. I still need to get at it with a felting needle to make the sun a bit sunnier. Ack, maybe I should just take a felting course... Wait a minute, my friend Nicole is offering a felting ecourse at the end of May!

Here is some more information that Nicole has sent my way:

Nicole used to run a weekly 'mama craft morning' where mamas would all gather with tea and babies and make sweet little things with natural supplies under her guidance. 'Magic Fairy Wool - online class' is an extension of those craft mornings.

In this class you will learn how to work with beautiful plant-dyed wool fibres, gently twisting and knotting them around themselves to create little birds and beasts and gnomes. You will also learn how to make a wool picture. This work does not involve any felting - wet or dry needle-felting - and is suitable for beginners and experienced crafters.
 

Nicole is excited to offer a reader a spot in the class (the hand-dyed by her mom wool may be purchased at her etsy shop: Lebenskuenstler.etsy.com)! Please leave a comment if you would like to be entered and I'll draw for the sweet spot on Monday morning. I hope you really needle a felting class these days. Ha! Get it?

 

True Random Number Generator Result: 21 That's you Cynthia ~ congratulations and have fun! Thank you everyone and your entries were so pun to read :)

No Small Fetus

I wasn't able to make it to a dear friend's blessingway a few weeks ago so instead we decided to do a project together to celebrate her journey to motherhood. We discussed how long (and let's face it, booooring) to knit up a baby blanket can take and she was really turned on to the idea of us massaging lots of love and good energy into a felted baby blanket.

 

TT, also known around here as Edie's soulmate, came over with a big cushy sheet of the most lucious purple batting from Maplerose; my favourite shop in all of Nelson. We laid out a towel then bubblewrap on the kitchen table and finally the batting on top.

I have a big bag full of felting projects gone bad that comes in handy for such projects. TT cut out a blue heart to place smack dab in the middle so she can have something to aim the baby at when she wants to put it down to swaddle. A sprinkle of silk/merino roving all about adds sheen plus helps adhere the heart to the blankie.  Kale was then gracious enough to lend us his watering can so we could sprinkle hot soapy water all over to get the felting process started already.

And there was lots of love rubbing. And lots of variations of 'Rub-a-dub dub Three Men in a Tub'. And then rolling with a big blind. Edie's really into counting to a hundred these days so she was pretty much in heaven when I told her they had to rub one hundred times in four directions to finish the blankie.

And then it's done. So honoured TT asked us to take part in this and so happy to see Edie throw in some of her love and fairy dust into this too. This is one lucky little baby!

Speaking of lucky babies, I spotted over on Angry Chicken the coolest gift one could get for a new arrival. Or even an older arrival I suppose. Custom birthcharts! I'm particularly intrigued by this because, I was flipping through a Chinese horoscope book at our  local video/new age bookstore and discovered I was a dog. Apparently I was born right at the cutting off point between pig and dog. So growing up all the Chinese restauarant disposable placemats were misleading me; I was just looking at the year I was born. Here I was thinking I was such a boar all these years!

Spring A Head

It's officially spring in my world because the spring issue of Rhythm of the Home has come out. Today's the day to treat yourself to a second latte and take an extra moment to yourself to read through all the spring is in the air articles on creating connection, warmth, play and celebration. And for an extra dose of celebration, they're doing their usual contributor sponsor giveaway which includes a spot in my Backwoods Mama Sew Camp. You can enter to win that spot, or any of the other exciting gifts over at the Rhythm of the Home blog. Oh my God! I think I just typed out Rhythm correctly the first try for the first time evah!

For this issue Edie and I collaborated again and put together a tutorial on to make three different felted flower hair bijoux. I offered a teaser of a sneak peek last month of these pins so scoot on over to this amazing online magazine to get the easy to follow (I hope!) instructions.  Edie loves making these together with me but a spring head's up, they all need some adult guidance for kidlets her kindergarten age.

And speaking of kidlets her age, I think this is also something to giddy about. Over on whipup they have this really sweet kid 'action pack mini magazine' full of pretty wholesome looking kid craft ideas. I see that there are instructions for an origami boat you can float which I'm pretty attracted to because the kids here are on a Curious George kick right now and have been folding up alot of newspaper boats like George does in his bike adventure. I hope this floats their boats!

Santa Lucia Day

Happy Santa Lucia Day to all of you who celebrate such things. This is turning into a fun family tradition since trying it out last year. It's a Swedish custom that on Santa Lucia Day the eldest daughter makes these saffron and raisen buns and serves them to the rest of the family breakfast in bed style. The tradition was kick started from our Waldorf Kindergarten curriculum book that has the funniest typo in the Santa Lucia section; "the shapes and names of these breakfast bums can differ from one county in Sweden to another." Edie almost choked on her bum when I read that one to her!

Next year she may be able to carry the tray to the bed herself so I can lounge in bed all Hugh Heifer style with her dad and brother. I felted that crown for her fourth birthday and needle felted some candles to stuff in there last night while listening to my latest audible book download. She wasn't backing the idea of stuffing and then lighting real candles for some reason. Edie wins the family Darwin award this year!

I made some smoothie to smooth out the carb overload and sang my own rendition of this song while we munched away. Luckily there are many words that rhyme with light and bright so I just mixed up the verses around a bit; 'coming to our bed with light, giving us such a fright - Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia'. Kind of like a Waldorf-inspired rap star. Craig was beat boxing in between bum bites.

Good Wreath, Charlie Brown

The second week of advent is the light of plants and so Craig wielded his mighty axe to a tree we found up the mountain behind our house and there it lies, subdued, on our porch since then. Meanwhile, we really needed to get that spring time welcome sign down already and get a little festive with the materials at hand. Out on the front deck we have ample foilage...

... and inside we have a really cute two year old holding a circular device I created with wire wrapped in tissue paper and then secured with a bulky yarn (and metallic pink thread thrown in for good measure). This was leftover from the autumn-themed mobile I hung up above the kitchen table for the kids' birthday week. Worked perfect as a wreath base.

I asked Edie to dive into the roving box and fish out all the colours that match the ones on their toy rainbow. Luckily, I had on hand a little bit of every colour. Two ounces of each were all I needed. Bummer though the only green we had was the exact same colour as the tree. We then made balls from the roving and if you ever want me to do  mini tutorial on a quick and easy way to do this (it involves throwing the lightly needle felted balls into a hot washing machine) just give me a jingle bell.

And then I secured the boughs to the the base with more wire and sewed the balls to the wire to try to cover them up some. Edie was really helpful at this part. She's got a great needle threading eye (and finger?) after working on her doll all this last year. As you can see, Edie was straining a little bit to hold up the wreath for the camera muttering "too. heavy. Mama." I told her this was the Phys Ed part of homeschool.

So, pretty easy peasy! Next up on our Christmas to do list; put up the tree and our halls will be completely decked with boughs, though no holly.

Rhythm of the Home Girls

The new issue of rhythm of the home is out and Edie and I collaborated on a project together to contribute. Check it out! We made some mommy and me wet felted slip-on cowls. Another fantasy of mine materializing lately; us. Just hanging out. Crafting. Side by side. She's at an age now where she can do most of the steps all by herself but even younger kids can get in on the fun. Especially the rubbing bit. KIds love the rubbing bit! Slightly sneaky way to train them to give back rubs too.

Only thing they seem to like more than the rubbing bit is the colour picking out bit. I have to admit that's the step I get most excited about. So sit back with a cup of cold black coffee with me(I have to cut out wheat and dairy these days see what's up with Kale's growing eczema patch) and check out the winter edition of my favourite online magazine. Be sure to swing by this blog entry for there is a give away from some of the contributers including one of the cowls Edie and I put together with our own little hands. Good luck and keep that neck covered out there!

Mama Needed a Break

I took another felting class at my beloved Maplerose.  I was really excited for this weekend for I had me planned this felting workshop on Friday afternoon and then was signed up for a breakdance class. More on that later. Ai, yi, yi, edited to say I'll be back with better pictures. Even I think those need an iron!

 I signed up for this class because for eons, ever since I was pregnant with Kale even, I was wondering how to make the kids' room darker for nap time. Right now I have this God-forsaken fleece blanket covered in freaky snowmen that scare Kale covering the window in my room and one of the square pillows that came with our couch in Edie's room. I decided a felted wall hanging would do the trick. What would make it even cooler I thought was if one side was a day scene and when it was naptime you would flip it over to the night scene. Now that I type it out I see that makes no sense whatsover because when the kids wake up they'll see a moonscape that won't jive with Mama's Good Morning song. Poor kids are getting such mixed messages all the time that that's not going to help. Anyhow, there's the prototype. Next two will be bigger to fit the windows.

Then breakdance class happened. Long story short I was busting out a move - the six step to be exact, and I tweeked my thumb bum. Or whatever that padded area under the thumb is called. And then my wrist was sore and today my hand was tingly. Teaches me to forge ahead even when I was practically the only adult in the room not sitting on a chair watching his or her child take it on. Lesson learned: I'm sticking to the worm on our soft and cushy cork floor and not going out or signing up for classes while under the influence of too much latte anymore.

Maplerose Bud

Welcome to my happy place. We live about forty minutes from town and, though it is a nice town and all, luckily I only have to make the trek about once every three weeks. And when there's snow on the ground hardly ever. But rest assured if I go to Nelson I go to Maplerose.

This week I signed up to take a felting class with everyone's favourite piñata making buddy -  TT! It was a very fun girly trip complete with a naughty afternoon latte from my favourite coffee shop in the world, a pipe purchasing mission at the Farmer Supply store because we are technically farmers now you know, and me telling TT my whole entire life story on the way home because she asked me how Craig and I met and, well, I just finished consuming five shots of espresso that day and that always loosens the lips. Poor TT.

OOoo... that one up there is what I wanted to get working on.  A mama pumpkin fairy playing ring around the rose with her little squash kids. Plus, Edie requested another fairy for the nature table. What Edie wants, Edie gets so a fairy I made. I seriously could just sit in this store and bliss out all day long. Everywhere the eye lands there is something beautiful staring back at you or some crafting supply beckoning for you to run with the inspiration.

And I love the workshops. They are offered about once a week and are usually felting based but I did one waaaay back on making a Waldorf doll. That one was a three week class meeting once a week and it was just the most amazing experience. It almost felt like a prenatal class with all four of us coming out of it with our own babes that kind of look like us that we created while getting to know each other with all that stitch and chit chat.

And it's nice too to craft without the babes around. Much more efficient that way. The going to town latte buzz makes the needlefelting action just that much faster as well. What a time saver!

And here's the little pumpkin. MIss Edie is pleased. Mission accomplished. Well, almost. I still want to make the little squash kids. Now if there was only a way to bring Maplerose to the mountain... hmmm...