Tooth Fairy Pillow

During my quiet of January I did managed to make some things. One of the cutest was this tooth fairy pillow, I modeled it on the owl pillow that I made for Jasper a couple of years ago when he lost his first tooth. This one was for our niece, she's almost six and absolutely obsessed with loosing her first tooth so I knew this pillow would be a dream come true for her.

There is a small pocket in the front of the owl's belly to hold the precious tooth until the "tooth fairy" comes in the middle of the night to take the tooth and replace it with money or a treat. I'm curious, is this just an American tradition or is it something that people in other parts of the world are familiar with too?

My niece's favorite color is purple so I tried to use variations on that theme, with some complementary colors thrown in. Now I'm working on one in a pink color scheme for Carys!

Here's another sweet visitor who's often in my studio...

We're headed up into the mountains to my family's farm in Asheville for the long Easter weekend, wishing you an exciting holiday celebration!

Tree Skirt

 Making a tree skirt for the base of our Christmas tree is a project that I've had in mind for a few years and finally this year, after being inspired by this tree skirt, I thought it would be fun to make something similar. So, I pulled out the felt and got to work. The rainbow theme is just one that interests me and the project came together as I laid out the dots.

The most time consuming part so far was pinning everything in place. Now, I'm starting to sew the pieces on, I'm wishing that I had a sewing machine for this one, I'm sewing them all on by hand in the evenings while Frank and I watch past seasons of Survivor (our guilty pleasure). I'll post pictures when its done!

Also, I just wanted to mention that tomorrow will be the last day to order from my shop before the holidays, in case you had your eye on something. I'll be closing my shop for a two week holiday break as we leave for our trip to celebrate up north.

Hello friends

Some peeks at our Thanksgiving week, and where I've been since then,

Enjoying the beach as the weather is getting a little colder,

Prepping apples for our well loved apple cake,

Eating with cousins at the "kid's table",

and trying not to look while the adults put together a scavenger hunt after Thanksgiving dinner,

In the past 2 weeks I have been crafting like crazy, both for the craft swap that I'm doing for Christmas, and also a few things for my kids plus my nieces, Frank thinks that I've turned into a crazy craft lady,

I've got so many cute offerings that I'll share soon!

Christmas crafting

Its hard to even be typing the word Christmas, since there is so much to do between here and then, and really it still feels so far off, but...I have started my Christmas crafting already! I was invited by my friend Em to be part of a group of mamas with young children who do a hand-made gift exchange for their little ones each year at Christmas time. The age spread of the children ranges from 12 down to 2, so I've been getting lots of ideas organized for each child. It has been really fun, and my own children have been helping me by test-playing with each thing that I make, giving them their seal of approval.

So far, I've got a flock of these needle felted blue birds. I really want to hug each one.

There are also some families of these little fairies in the works,  although before I could even start on the ones to give away Jasper and Carys put their orders in for fairies for themselves.

Some bumble bees, 

Some of these things are going to be a bit hard to part with, but we are really excited to find out what the other moms will send us at Christmas! I'll make sure to post about all of the gifts as I finish them, crafting with a purpose is so satisfying and it feels so sweet and special to be thinking about the other children opening the packages and enjoying my crafts.

Our Christmas Angel

Happy Solstice! Last night Frank and I got up at 2:30am to witness the lunar eclipse, this particular alignment, right on our winter solstice, has not occurred in over 400 years, so we felt like we didn't want to miss it. I heard that it was visible from all over North and South America. I had never seen an eclipse before and this one did not disappoint, seeing the moon darkened was surreal, and I have never seen the stars glowing so brightly! It felt so special to see it!

I want to share with you the new tree topper Christmas angel, that I just finished. I've learned some wonderful crafts at our Waldorf playgroup's parent craft group, but this has been by far my favorite. I love learning a new skill and then "running" with it to let my creative juices flow. For this project the teacher showed us how to create a doll out of wool through the process of needle felting.

Then we took wool home to complete the dress decorations and wings on our own. I also added the basket that she is holding, as sort of a cornucopia, my kids call it her "basket of presents". The basket is actually a petal that I learned how to wet felt in the amazing felting class that I took after Thanksgiving!

My favorite part of making the angel was working on her hair,

I loved making it wild, adding braids, twists, flowers, gold....all kinds of pretty things. She's got my idea of angel hair!

I makes my heart sing every time I see my kids admiring her up on our tree. I want them to remember the little things that I make, as through making each thing for our home I am making my love tangible.

This afternoon I asked Frank to pick a number between 1 and 6, and he chose number 5....so Ang, you are the lucky winner of Nicole's beautiful Indonesian glass bead necklace! Contact me with your information so that she can send it to you!

I wishing you all a bit of Christmas magic! Frank and I are about to head out for a date night, yeah!

Right now...

I am loving,

The thrill of opening our shutters to a light coating of snow yesterday morning!

Seriously, if it is going to be this cold I feel like we might as well have snow to make it beautiful, and I do think that the city is rarely as beautiful and quiet as after a snow fall.

I am loving my boy's newly toothless grin!

and also loving working on more felt projects, this past weekend I created another rainbow garland. First I wet felted a bunch of little white balls that I put bands of bright color around. Then I cut out flower shapes from felt that I had in my craft cabinet, in a rainbow of colors. I then laid them all out in a row, in the order that I wanted to string them...

and here is the finished garland, it is about 4 feet long, and I hung it in the arch way between our kitchen and living room, where Carys likes to touch it each time she walks by.

I am also loving working on a few top secret handmade Christmas gifts, that I'll share here when they are closer to being finished! Suddenly Christmas feels so soon!

More felting!

Here is a peak at a few of the other things that we made in our amazing felting class, even though the class finished early this week the felt fun has been continuing here, I think that the kids and I have found a new addiction.

We loved making these felt balls, that were so easy and simple both kids could make them with little to no help, it was all about rolling the wet felt in your hands, which was very satisfying. Then I finished them with the little bands of color.

Then we learned how to make felted pouches, which was probably my favorite project. I made this lotus pouch first...

and then I helped Jasper make this pouch, since he is six and turquoise is his favorite color he wanted six turquoise stripes, it all turned out great and he has been filling it with mysterious little things ever since! He is very proud of it.

Felting like crazy!

The Felt-a-Licious class started a few days ago and even with getting ready for my show, I am loving finding the time for this total immersion in the felting world. I didn't anticipate how much Jasper and Carys would also love felting with me but we have been having a ball. I wanted to show you a few of the things that we have made so far. First we made the wool felted petals of the flowers above, that we placed on top of each other and picked just the right buttons from our button collection to decorate each one.

Then I decided that one of the felted flowers from that project would be perfect to decorate the new winter hat that I just bought at H&M, so I sewed it on, and then realized that it looks so cute with the hat that I decorated with felt flowers for Carys last year. Now we can wear them together, I just love how they sort of match!

We still had some felted petals left over and the kids and I started making a mobile with them, which then evolved into this hanging rainbow garland..

In between our wool felted petals we strung some beads and felt cut-out shapes. We hung it up by our back door, and the kids love seeing the petals that they felted hanging there in our rainbow. I really love family art projects like this, and am looking forward to more felting to come!

Felt-a-licious

There is something about heading into these winter months that makes me just feel like crafting with wool. A friend and I started sewing wool felt food for our children's play kitchens two winters ago. I jumped right in and I think that winter I must have sewn about 12 little cakes and cupcakes. Then last winter a friend offered a workshop for the parents in our Waldorf Playgroup on wool felting. From the moment I started working with the soft wool, and all of those colors, I was hooked! There is such a meditative peaceful feeling that comes over me when I have my hands in wool, and that is why I was so excited to learn about this delicious looking online workshop, being taught by two beautiful women who I have become friends with online recently, Nicole and Emily.

The wool that Nicole is sourcing from Australia, where she lives, looks so yummy doesn't it! I'll be taking this workshop and I'm really looking forward to it, as it feels like the perfect way to decompress after the busy Thanksgiving holiday that is fast approaching.

If you'd like to join me you can find out more information about the class and teachers (they are lovely!) and registration here. I can't wait to make lot's of wonderful woolly Christmas presents, especially these felted ipod/phone pouches, so sweet!