'tis the season.

These dark cloudy wet days are perfect for cozying up at home and making things. We have been busy counting down to Solstice, making gifts and decorating. Some traditional things we do every year, some inspired by bloggy friends. All making the house a warm beautiful place to be. 'Tis the season!

clay gift tags.

The gift making craftiness has begun. It is time for list making, gathering supplies, and making. The boys love making things too. One of the things we started this week is gift tags. We change it up from year to year, and this year decided to make some using air dry clay. It is a really simple process and the variations and possibilities are really endless.


For this first round we rolled out air dry clay fairly thinly and G picked out some stamps. Using a napkin ring (it was the perfect size we needed - you can also use cookie cutters of any shape you like) we cut out circles.


G then took a skewer and pierced a hole in the top of each one. He then stamped them. He did one batch that he stamped "a gift for you" and he added some little embellishments with other stamps around the edge for texture. Stamp words, names, designs, whatever you want.


We let them dry for 2 days. The first day they dried stamp up. We then flipped them over to dry a bit on back too.


You can use them as is - the white clay looks nice. Or, you can paint. We wanted an earthy look to go with some of our tea blend gifts, so we squirt a dab of gold acrylic paint on each disc, made sure the paint was in the sunken stamped areas, and then gently brushed/rubbed with a sponge brush to remove most of the paint from the surface (don't forget the back and edges), leaving the low lying words filled with darker paint. G finished a few dozen happily painting and brushing. Let dry. They look earthy and beautiful and are great for hand made gifts.

You can insert ribbon, raffia or twine through the hole and tie onto your gift. You can leave more generic or you can use the back of the disc to write a name (a paint pen works great). We are planning on making a few more batches of them since they look so nice - some that are long and skinny with stamped names going down the front, as well as a few other shapes/variations with stamps (snowflake, leaf, star). Love it!

ghost lanterns.

As the rainy fall days surround us, we think of light. More light! It has been awhile since we have made any canning jar tissue paper lanterns, so today in the spirit of G's holiday decorating mission we made ghosts. These are always fun and easy to make and you can pretty much find a design for any holiday or season (here is a good tutorial with Halloween designs if you want more than my laid back general info!).


G and I cut strips of white tissue paper, pulled out brushes, put out craft mats, and poured Mod Podge into bowls. Working a strip at a time the boys then brushed on Mod Podge, then applied a strip, gently tapping and coating each strip as they adhered.


They did two layers, leaving the tops loose until the end. They then added Mod Podge to the top edge and then sprinkled a good bit of white thick glitter all over the outside.


Must have glitter.


We trimmed the tops so no white paper was over the opening and let them dry. We did apply a single water based varnish layer with a brush after the modpodge dried. If you don't use glitter you won't need it, but we didn't want to shed glitter forever (there are now versions of all-in-one Mod Podge glue/sealer/finish that glow in the dark, shimmer and have glitter, but ours was...plain).


When dry G helped draw face designs and I cut them out. He glued them on with a thick glue stick layer. All that was left was inserting a tea light and turning out the lights!

apple candles.

G asked the other day when we were going to make the apple candles. It is fall, after all, and we have been stopping at the orchard every week for a month! Which means of course we immediately went to gather the supplies and make some.


We found a few apples that were not the most perfect to eat. G first scraped out a little hole in the top. He used the apple corer to push an inch in and then popped that out and scooped with a spoon (a grapefruit spoon worked best, if you have one). His brother decided if there was apple gutting going on, he was making some too.


G scooped and fit, scooped and fit, until the hole was just big enough to hold a tea light (we had black amber tea lights). He slid those in.


From there, he wanted to decorate them, so he found some fall leaf craft 'buttons' and using fat topped sewing pins, he pierced the apple to secure. He also studded a ring around the top with cloves.


The final touches included cutting out some modeling wax in leaf and apple shapes to scatter around the holder.


Done! Apple candles will last only a few days, but they look and smell nice! It gets dark earlier and earlier, and G loves when they are lit in the evening.



Our house is feeling more fall festive by the day - although G says we have a lot to do still! :)

felt skull bunting/banner.

For the past week, G has been on a crafting extravaganza. We have made and baked and crafted and created. He loves that the holidays are upon us and we can FINALLY decorate the house for something! One of the first projects we did was a felt skull banner.

Supplies:: 2 pieces of 8.5x11" orange felt, and 2 pieces of 8.5x11" dark brown felt (you can use black too, we just like brown/orange for Halloween). Bias tape or hem binding. Stapler (or sewing machine). Glitter glue. Craft glue. Scissors.

I cut one piece of the orange felt into quarters (fold in half, cut. fold both halves in half, cut).
Did the same for the brown. This makes 4 orange rectangles and 4 brown.


We had looked online for a skull I could cut out with scissors easily (and which G approved of), and found this one. I cut it out after printing a copy to the printer (printed larger/blown up to fit my felt rectangles). I used a chalk pattern pencil to outline it to the felt. I cut out 4 orange skulls and 4 brown skulls from the other 2 felt sheets.


G got to work laying out all of the felt pieces and gluing orange skulls to brown felt, and brown skulls to orange felt.


Once that was done, it was time to attach the felt bunting/banners to the bias tape (you could easily use a ribbon or hem tape too). I offered to sew it for an even stitch, but as he must do everything himself and already had to concede that I must do the skull cutting, he decided that stapling would be best. He carefully stapled each felt piece to the bias tape.


He then applied a glitter glue design to cover the staples.


After it dried for awhile it was ready to hang. We now have an awesome skull bunting/banner hanging in our window. He wants to make more! I have my scissors ready.

herb pressing.

We love to press herbs and flowers and use them for crafts like ornaments, bookmarks, gift tags or artwork. We pick all kinds of flowers - from lilacs and violets to those lovely flowers atop the arugula going to seed and dill tops.


Pressing flowers is nice because they are so colorful even months later when peeled from between the pages. But we also love to press herbs and leaves. We are always picking different things and experimenting. Some may be for our quest to see if we remember what they are later, or just using something that caught the eye of A or G.

We also love pressing things for ... smell. There is something quite heady about getting a whiff of an herb in January during a blizzard. We try different things to see what holds the smell best. We do dehydrate herbs for culinary uses but they turn dark and crinkle in the dehydrator so all we get is smell. Pressing in a flower press we keep color and shape and often the scent!


So throughout the summer we will remember to pick and press for both crafts and smell. This week we heard that we might get an early frost and could lose the delicate greenery. Which means it was the perfect time to pick. One of our presses is full of summer flowers, but we still had some space in the second one.

We picked all kinds of things - remembering or wondering which would be best later.


We picked flowering herb tops such as hyssop, chocolate mint, spearmint, lemon balm, tiny dill heads, shisho, thai basil, purple basil. We picked other leafy herbs like celery tops, thyme, marjoram, cilantro, and fennel. And of course the boys picked some other things that looked interesting like nasturtium flowers, lilacs, a piece of tomato leaf (G wants to sniff it later!), and some clover just for good luck. They wanted to save all the four leaf clover so they will have good luck all winter, so they searched and searched. ;)

I am interested to see if the celery still smells in 4 months!

What do you think would retain its scent best?

clay!

For this fall, the boys wanted to try some new classes/activities. Of course the challenge is that asthma boy is not supposed to be in crowds of kids during cold/flu season, and we have to be *really* careful (not to mention that my other sensory boy can't do loud/crowded anyway).


One of the activities the boys have wanted to do is clay/pottery. We found an awesome local studio that has open studio hours during the week days and we can go whenever we want to and not worry so much about crowds of kids and loud and too much and viruses. PERFECT.


We went to our first open clay studio last week and the got familiar with the setup and how things work. Both boys really enjoyed themselves, and we will definitely be going all winter. We even hope to have a private lesson so they can learn the wheel! Fun!


And the bonus is this mama can participate too - love it.

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! :)

home weekending.

I think (?) we are in the final stretch of cold, snowy, wet weekends. It is so nice to snuggle up at home together, knowing soon we will be in the intense minute by minute of summer. I even enjoy the snowflakes. The long slow goodbye.



The boys seem to realize this inside-ness is not going to last forever, and busily fill the time with games, projects, crafts, drawing, and everything they can think of. They help in the kitchen, the knead and roll dough, they chop and stir.


They scour books for science projects we can work on together, or pull out costumes and props for shows or story lines. Piles of books on side tables. Displays of the latest LEGO creations. Fleeces and hats and boots still by the front door for bike rides in the alley.


And a few mutant scar-faced bunnies.


Just a little more home weekending. Which is a good thing.


But I'm almost ready.

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