plushies!

A & G came to me last week and asked if I could sew them luma plushies. After finding out what a luma is, we got to work. They googled and found a pattern for me to use.


We then hit the local fabric shop where they picked out their fabric, stuffing, thread, and felt for the eyes. Ready!


I sewed and cut and stitched and stuffed - with help from the boys, of course.


It is a decent pattern, so the result was...luma plushies!


They turned out great and now my guys have decided to put me to work making them a full rainbow of luma - I think I might need a thimble! :)

dandelion season.

Spring is here. And with that comes fresh greens from the garden as well as foraging for all kinds of good things nature has to offer. One of the closest and easiest things to forage is dandelions. I don't have to go far at all. I can find them in my own yard. Yesterday we had a sunny morning, a hot day ahead, and lots of dandelions in bloom.


To pick dandelions is easy - we needed a few quarts of flowers for several recipes, so we just plucked the heads right off. It is best to pick the dandelions early in the day - before full heat and before they wilt or close up. I know this is pretty obvious, but only pick from organic lawns -not anywhere that has been sprayed - and best to stay back from busy roads or where you know animals (dogs) have been doing their business.

What we wanted was enough dandelions for lemonade!


We found a really good recipe here via a Facebook friend - but since I am biologically incapable of ever following a recipe exactly I have my own version. ;)

1 quart of fresh dandelion flowers
3 lemons, juiced (organic best so you can use the rind too)
2 limes, juiced
1 knob of ginger (thumb sized), thinly sliced
honey to taste
filtered room temperature water


After picking the flowers rinse and drain them in cold water. Add them to a 1/2 gallon canning jar. To that add the juice of the lemons and limes, as well as a few (clean) rinds left from the squeezing, the ginger and the honey. Fill the canning jar with room temperature filtered water.


Let it steep for a few hours. From there strain it and chill!

A loves it plain (and cold!).


G loves it with a little elderberry syrup. "Pink" lemonade.


Both are delicious!

We have some more time in this dandelion season and are working on batches of dandelion vinegar, oil and a salve. Dandelions and their greens just have so much good stuff in them it is worth it all. And if you are looking for some other ways to eat the flowers - check out these recipes. Dandelion Fritters over at Clean. And Dandelion Cookies at 5 Orange Potatoes. Yum.

What is your favorite way to enjoy dandelions?

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doing.

After having a small dusting of snow (finally!) and putting up our tree, it finally feels more like winter. We love tucking in and being busy at home when the cold and snow arrives. Days full of so many 'things to do' and yet nothing much we MUST do. Snuggles, games, books, baking, making, doing. So much doing.


Lying under the tree on big fluffy pillows looking at the lights sparkle from down below while giggles, stories and songs ensue, one boy tucked perfectly into each shoulder.


Sorting a ridiculous quantity of holiday crafty materials, with the 'what can we make next'.


The almost never ending question - mom, can we decorate those cookies/gingerbread houses. Never enough cookies, never enough icing (I'm to the point of wanting to never have to smell icing again, though. wow.).


The first snowflakes (FINALLY), the birds and squirrels on our deck, and the annual return of our favorite mourning doves.

The discussions of how to get our fluffy and very opinionated rabbit to wear a mini red velvet Santa hat. Or antlers (I have thwarted them so far, though she doesn't seem very appreciative).


The writing and re-writing of the lists. Oh, the lists.


The boys making a daily 'sports hour' to compensate for being inside a bit more now that the cold has arrived. Darts, archery, trampoline, yoga ball, twister, drumming, dancing, and just running in circles full speed.


All of the science experiments and new projects the boys want to do. And sketches of all of the snow animals, forts and ramps that will be made once we get some 'real' snow.


Kaffeeklatsch.

Piano. Long plays and elaborate costumes. Story telling. Family trees. Talk of 'when they grow up'.


Planting all kinds of things to see what we get (lentils, above).


I love when we get that shift this time of year. The air, light, energy and focus just jump. Perhaps having shorter days means the daylight we do have is just - more. More energy, creativity, ideas. More snuggling and talking and sharing. Whatever it is, I'm glad it is here and am looking forward to more of all this doing.

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bird feeders.

Every fall we like to make some sort of bird feeder for our yard. This year we had a new idea. We saw a terra cotta pot bird feeder craft in an old garden craft book (which I can't now remember) and we thought it would be nice to try making one, but using compostable bio pots and bamboo/recycled saucers instead of the terra cotta!


We picked up bio pots (with holes in the bottom where you can put a cord) and bamboo saucers (a few inches bigger than the top of the pot so you have enough room to add bird seed).

To start, the boys painted a white base using outdoor acrylic craft paint on the inside and outside of compostable pots and let dry. They then painted their designs on the outside of their pots, and let that dry again. This paint is outdoor paint, so with the combination of the white base layer and the boys' thickly painted designs, we didn't feel we needed to varnish them too.


Once dry, we looped a strong cord through the pot holes on the top and knotted tightly (to create a loop to hang it). I put a blob of glue on the knot just to be sure it held.



We sandpapered the lip of the pots a tad bit, and then I used gorilla glue to adhere the pots upside down onto the saucers (added: you can gently smooth the glue as it poofs out of the crack as it is drying so that there isn't any glue outline on the outer edge). We let that dry too, and then voila! Ready to hang.

(yes, he's trying to slyly stick his tongue out - ha!)

We added some bird seed and hung them on a tree.


We had birds within an hour. The bright designs look great in our bare tree, and will pop once the snow hits the ground. We can see it from our back door so can bird watch all winter!



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twine.

While I like knitting, I lately have been trying to re-learn crochet. Crochet is something I grew up with - my grandmother was always knitting afghans or table runners, and I learned a lot from her. After many (many) years away from it though, I have been in need of practice, beginner patterns, and...more practice. A local blogger friend made some book recommendations not long ago for learning crochet and this week I picked them up from the library. Two of the books had patterns and samples using kitchen and/or butcher's twine. You probably have all seen this before, but it was new to me! Of course I had to go out and get some immediately. And I must say I have had a great time crocheting with it. I have been doing simple crochet squares for coasters, and I love how easy it is for me to see my stitches with the twine, how much more even my not-so-nimble-with-the-crochet-hook-yet stitches are, and how I am not worried about ruining it doing the crochet/tear out of learning. I also like that it looks very modern, clean, simple and stylish. Yes, twine.

I'm using the coasters to get my fingers going and everything figured out and even/straight, and then I want to try a pattern for folding baskets using thicker butcher's twine. Very cool!

what a week!

I can't believe it is Monday already! After a very rough week with G's cold and bad asthma, he is feeling a lot better (well, we all are) and energy will hopefully be returning to normal. Though we spent last week to ourselves taking care of our sick little guy, we also had a nice snuggly family goodness in the kitchen kind of week.


My husband worked ridiculous hours during all this, so A, G and I spent much of the week curled up together, painting, baking, crafting, picking raspberries, reading, and, whenever G could handle it, going outside for some fresh air and sunshine.


Of course for me, having a week without much sleep, not much relief, and a lot of caretaking, meant that I have had tons of creative ideas. Funny how that works, eh?


So, I have plans and sketches for the fall for quilts, photography projects, painting, knitting and more. I wrote it all down, including sketches in my journal, so I know I will even remember it all! ;)

A few ideas are already being worked on, and I can't wait to share.

Happy Monday!

catcher of dreams.

G has had an interest in Native American craft, dance, and folklore of late, and we have been reading some of the trickster fables as well as reading about costume (oh, he loves the beadwork) and craft. One thing that caught his eye is the dreamcatcher. The Ojibwa believed that a dreamcatcher protected sleeping children from nightmares. "Only good dreams are allowed to filter through . . . Bad dreams stay in the net, disappearing with the light of day. Good dreams would pass through and slide down the feathers to the sleeper."


Well. When he heard that he had to make one. He had found a 'kit' for making one, but of course didn't like the plastic beads and garish feathers. He had his own idea. We used a metal ring base, and wrapped it with leather. He then ("I'm doing it all by myself") carefully threaded waxed raffia around and around and around for his web. He used beads from his box of homemade clay beads he created awhile back, and red feathers - his favorite.

As soon as it was done he had to try it out::


Works perfectly, he says.

lavender...

I love lavender. It smells wonderful, it is beautiful, it has many wonderful properties. I am very sensitive to lavender essential oil and so cannot use any bath/body/laundry/cleaning supplies using lavender oils/fragrance. I can, however, handle the plant itself just fine. And what a plant it is.

We picked up a few bundles of fresh lavender at our CSA farm last week. After letting it dry for a few days, we were ready to go. There are so many things you can make with dried lavender...we decided to make lavender sugar and bath salts. Both quick and easy to make, and the boys love to pluck the buds and shake the jars.



Lavender Sugar.

It has such a nice aroma. It is a great substitute for the store bought sprinkles on top of cakes and cookies. It is really amazing sprinkled over fresh berries (try it, really!) or mixed in at the end when whipping cream for desserts.

ingredients::
1 cup organic big crystal sugar
2-3 tsp fresh lavender buds, dried (don't use the stuff made for potpourri...not for food!)
small jelly jar

Mix together, screw on the lid, and let sit at room temperature for a week or two before using for maximum flavor.


You can put the lavender buds in a little muslin bag inside the sugar to add its aroma but not add the little chunks into what you sprinkle it on if you like - or sift before using. I actually like seeing the little flowers along with the crystals. And they are edible. :)

You can of course also make this with a finer turbinado sugar...and use it for baking scones and cakes. (I'm making a lavender honey today!!!).

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Lavender Bath Salts.

I love using dead sea salts as a detox body scrub for me, and it is a great additive every week (or whenever he has a flare-up) for the bath for my son with eczema. Dead sea salt contains many minerals and has many therapeutic qualities good for the skin, the body, and healing - and that combined with the soothing/anti-inflammatory properties of the lavender and the emollient almond oil relieves itching and flare-ups.

ingredients::
1 cup good quality dead sea salt
1 Tbsp lavender buds, dried
1 Tbsp good quality almond oil

Mix together and store in an air tight canning jar. Let sit at room temperature for a week or two before using for maximum scent. Multiply this recipe for quantity...this makes about 2 baths worth.


You can scoop this into a small muslin bag and place it into the bathwater or just scoop right into bath if you don't mind little buds. :)

There are so many great uses for lavender...I'm sure we'll make many more things as the summer goes along. These all make great gifts too (we love testing out recipes in the summer so we can have ideas for gifting in a few months).

wood craft.

Some of my favorite projects with the boys are those that start off with one idea and morph into something completely different and creative. We talked about making different things with scraps of wood we've been saving, but nothing really was taking shape until we pulled out the saw, miter and heavy duty wood glue over the weekend. We came up with some cool designs - a land-water boat, a race car, and a pickup truck.


We used bits and pieces of wood, parts from those wood craft 'kits', little tiny craft spools, wheels, dowels, and other scraps from the bottom of my 'wood' craft box. The boys sawed and carefully laid out the pieces (spending a lot of time putting pieces together so they looked like vehicles) and once we had each vehicle ready, they glued! We waited a day for that to dry, and then they sanded rough edges and put a base coat of white acrylic on and waited another day for that to dry (they actually looked really cool all white too).


Finally, we were ready to paint some color. I had put out a bunch of different colors of acrylic on the palettes, but once the boys saw the new metallic blue color I had found at our last craft store visit that.was.it. They wanted some bling.


So now we have some funky bright home crafted wooden vehicles that have been raced down ramps, ridden by finger puppets and bionicles, and which have been used to haul things around the house like LEGO people, marbles and pirate gold.


Of course making them was the best part. I saw the boys digging in the wood pieces box today to see what we have left. I have a feeling we have some new designs coming on.

craftiness.

We are a pretty crafty family. We bake, make, sew, knit, paint, craft. But lately the boys have really not been too interested in craftiness, only in science science science! We have had a very fun winter full of science kits, experiments, LEGO, Hexbots, science DVD's, books on topics like robotics/human body/geysers/Yellowstone/money/tangrams, and writing lots of lists and stories. But then - in the past week they both suddenly exploded in a crafty world of painting and making things again!


I recently picked up some more supplies for our craft stash. I got a lot of wood - some smaller figures, and also a lot of raw wood pieces for projects like pine cars, garden signs, and things they can drill, hammer, sand and finish. I also pulled out all of the flowers and herbs we pressed from our garden last summer. All of this sparked lots of new ideas.


There have been many color studies and colorful watercolor paintings.


Lots of paper cutting, embossing, gluing and stamping.


Wood painting and embellishing.


And my favorite thing of the week - peg people making. I got these forms because the boys wanted to make knights. But after another karate belt promotion last weekend, A had the idea to make a series of karate people with different belts/levels of gi. Plus a few ninjas. He has been painting these figures with me for days - a little bit at a time. I love them!


We have been home with a sick boy (A has a nasty cold) this week, so we have had plenty of time to tinker away on our projects, take our time, bake, read and cozy up together. Can't wait to see what we make today!