Beeswax Easter Egg Candles.

Today we made another version of our Easter candles... sweet-smelling beeswax eggs!

We needed:

* playdough

* a boiled egg

* about an egg sized amount of beeswax (see melting tutorial here)

* candle wick (from a craft store)

* a toothpick

* a tiny drop of olive oil

* a recycled eggcup

* a stick
Roll the playdough into a ball.

Put a tiny drop of olive oil into the palm of your hand and smooth it over the egg. This will keep the egg from sticking to the playdough. You want the egg to have the smallest coating.
Push the egg into the playdough until it is about two thirds covered.
Gently wiggle the egg out, keeping intact the egg hollow in the playdough... this is your candle mould.
Use the tooth pick to make a hole in the base of the playdough mould.
Thread the candle wick through this hole and pinch the playdough around the wick so that the hole is sealed.Stand your playdough mould back on it's base, wind the top end of the wick around the stick to keep the wick in the centre of the mould. Pour the melted beeswax into the mould and allow to cool.
Once the wax is cool and solid, peel away the playdough and a lovely egg candle emerges.

It smells so deliciously of honey!!

Another lovely Easter candle to add to our collection for our Easter table.

Blessings and magic for a happy Easter!

Make Fun Easter Candles

Making sweet Easter candles has become an Easter tradition in our family. We make a few variations and save them all to put on our Easter table. It is a treat for the kids when they are, at last, allowed to light them... each child taking turns with the taper. The anticipation of having saved them through the Easter season shines from their excited eyes... it's too delightful.

Today, we made colorful Easter Egg candles.

We needed:

* empty egg shells (here is a tutorial on how to clean out eggs)

* beeswax

* colored crayons

* candle wick (found at craft stores)

* sticky tape

* an recycled egg cup

* scissors

Prepare the eggshells for the melted wax by sticking a little sticky tape over the small hole on the egg shell. Make sure the tape is stuck fast to seal the shell well.Turn the eggshell upside down and place it in the egg cup so that it is secured.
Cut a length of wick. Tie it around a stick and balance it in the middle of the egg shell. Your shell is now ready for the melted wax.
I use a recycled jar to make a bain-marie to melt the beeswax (here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to safely melt wax).

We adore the wonderful golden color of melted beeswax and breath deeply of the honey aroma. My house always smells so sweet on beeswax craft days.

When I am doing a craft using melted beeswax with the children, we are very careful. Melted wax is extremely hot and would cause a horrid burn. As a precaution, I always work with a bowl of iced water nearby and my children know to put their hand into the cold water if they do get burned.

To color the beeswax, add a little colored crayon to the melted wax and stir until the color blends evenly into the beeswax.

Then carefully pour the melted wax into the eggshell and allow it to cool.

Cut the wick to the desired length and... Voila! Beautifully colored Easter candles.
Blessings and magic for your Easter preparations!

Silent Saturday.

Drinking Rainbow Water.

Friday's Nature Table.

Welcome back to Friday's Nature Table. This is a weekly forum for us to share the nature inspired things we have done... our nature ideas, crafts, activities, inspirations and photos. Nature's beauty is all around... her magic is everywhere!

I encourage everyone to participate... just add your link in the form below and your post will become the next on the list for all to enjoy. The more wonderful ideas we can share about how to love our beautiful earth, the happier we will be.

Enjoy! and thank you for sharing today...

Blessings and magic.

Discovering Waldorf - 'Playscapes for Imaginative Play'.

I welcome Lori from Beneath The Rowan Tree to Discovering Waldorf today. Lori is an exceptionally talented needle-felter with a hugely successful Etsy shop. I adore her creations! Her topic for discussion is the needle felted playscape.

Last Christmas, I said to K that I would needle felt for her anything her heart desired for her gift. She thought for a moment and then said, and these were her words... she'd like "a little green meadow with a hollowed out tree stump for her animals to play in, a pond, a flower garden, a few toadstool and, very important, stepping stones." As usual, she knew exactly what she wanted! I had been thinking of making her a playscape for ages and was so excited to get started. I have to say that I enjoyed making it immensely.

K was utterly delighted with her 'Magical Meadow' on Christmas morning and has played with it just about every single day since. I am so excited to share Lori's post with you!

* * *

Playscapes for Imaginative Play by Lori

Not everyone knows what a playscape is, what a playstand is for or what a playsilk does. The word 'play' isn't always a giveaway ~ so dependent have we become on toys that direct the child that we find it hard to trust that our children will know just what to do with these alternative toys!

These toys, arising out of the Waldorf educational philosophy, are intentionally open ended, simple and made with natural materials. They are created to nurture the wonder of the early years of childhood by allowing children to move smoothly into the world of play and imagination while determining, for themselves, the course and nature of that play.

Most mainstream toys limit a child by determining how the child shall play through their built in cause and effect types of features (push the button, it makes a sound). While cause and effect is an important skill, it doesn't leave much to the imagination, nor does it allow the child to practice problem solving or to live out their rich inner life! Not to mention that plastic (aside from environmental and health concerns) is cold and lifeless.

Natural toys warm in a child's hands. You can easily explain the cycle from sheep to wool to toy and connect the child with the earth and the ideas of inter-connectedness and sustainability. They allow the child to lead the play and move freely through their imaginative ideas. They are wide open space instead of a cattle chute!

I wanted to take a moment for the playscape~ essentially a play mat, an environment for natural play. Most playscapes are felted (wet and needle felting OR processed wool felt) and made of wool and other natural fibers.

They provide a scene or setting for the child's play. They also provide lots of open space for that play to unfold. Popular themes are fairy, gnome and folk tale based. Natural environments being most common: farm, seaside, forest and more. Sizes vary, as does scale. They can be populated with many simple things~ acorns, stones, crystals, bendy dolls, natural found items.

We love to create playscapes and many other natural toys at Beneath the Rowan Tree, as do a number of other members of the Etsy Natural Kids Street Team (www.etsy.com) and use handmade search term 'Naturalkids team').

* * *

Thank you, Lori... your words make me want to play like a child! Have a look through Lori's beautiful shop to see her gorgeous creations. Lori also writes a lovely blog, also called Beneath The Rowan Tree with lots of lovely waldorf ideas and tutorials.

Thanks for the inspiration, Lori... blessings and magic to you.

Make a Mossy Spring Wreath.

To welcome Spring into our home, we made a Mossy Spring Wreath to hang on our front door. It has a golden bow, little spring-colored paper roses and a tiny nest with robin's eggs inside it and we say 'Hello Spring' whenever we open our door!

This is what we need:

* A wreath frame

* Dried Moss (found at a craft store)

* Tacky Glue

* Sticks for spreading the glue

* Hot glue gun

* Paper flowers

* Pretty Spring-colored ribbon

* Little blue eggs (make your own using this tutorial or find some at a craft store)

* A nest (make your own from grape vine or find one at a craft store

Cover the wreath with ample glue...

Find a little boy to help you spread the glue using the sticks.

And then I'm sure he'd love to help you stick the moss to the wreath.
When you have generously covered the wreath with moss, making sure that no part of the original wreath frame shows, leave it in the sun until the glue is dry.

When it is dry, find a little girl to help you trim the straggly bits of moss so that your mossy wreath looks neat.
With your glue gun, put a blob of glue onto the moss where you want the nest to go. Stick it on fast. Use your glue gun again to gently stick the little blue robins eggs into the nest. Use your glue gun again to stick the pretty paper roses into place.

Hang your pretty Spring wreath with the ribbon, tying a lovely bow at the top and Voila! What a pretty wreath you have to welcome in the Spring!

Blessings and magic to you today!

Silent Saturday

Nature's Jungle Gym.

Friday's Nature Table.

Welcome back to Friday's Nature Table. This is a weekly forum for us to share the nature inspired things we have done... our nature ideas, crafts, activities, inspirations and photos. Nature's beauty is all around... her magic is everywhere!

I encourage everyone to participate... just add your link in the form below and your post will become the next on the list for all to enjoy. The more wonderful ideas we can share about how to love our beautiful earth, the happier we will be.

Enjoy! and thank you for sharing today...

Blessings and magic.

Discovering Waldorf - 'Storytelling'.

I became interested in Waldorf education when K was 4. I devoured anything I could find on this captivating philosophy, scouring the internet, reading books and talking, talking, talking. I was so delighted when I discovered a Waldorf inspired class in my city and joined myself and K up immediately. The class was utterly enchanting but it was when the teacher started her 'story-time' that I completely fell in love! It was a purely magical experience for me, let alone for K! I watched her eyes sparkle with wonder as she watched the story unfold.

Our guest blogger today is Farida Dowler and her topic is Waldorf storytelling. Farida brings a wonderful perspective as she is both a Children's Librarian and an artisan who makes the most enchanting Waldorf-inspired dolls for storytelling.

Enjoy!

* * *

Waldorf Storytelling by Farida Dowler

A few friends gather together for stories

When I was a new storyteller in the mid 1990s, I read Storytelling and the Art of Imagination, and Storytelling With Children by master storyteller Nancy Mellon. Mellon has been closely connected to the Waldorf movement for a long time, and from her books I picked up a few elements of Waldorf storytelling. However, my formal introduction to Waldorf came when I read an extensive article in a 2003 edition of Utne Reader magazine. That article described a curriculum that used storytelling throughout the discipline.

As I did more research, I was particularly taken with the personalities of the math gnomes used to teach addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. If you’ve ever read Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth and wished you too could visit the lands of Digitopolis and Dictionopolis where numbers and letters have tactile attributes, then you will understand how joyful I felt when I made this discovery.

My vision of the Math Gnomes

In the six years that my daughter has attended Waldorf school, storytelling transformed her life. The stories themselves are based on folk tales, nursery rhymes, or come from the teachers’ own imaginations, but they inevitably take their inspiration from nature. In the parent-toddler class, the teacher used wool figures and knitted animals on displays made with silks, stones and pinecones. When she spoke, her measured tones allowed the child’s imagination to take hold without any attempt to manipulate emotions with overt vocal inflections.

In preschool, the teacher used a story mat (often called a “naturescape”) evocative of the one found in The Knitted Farmyard by Hannelore Wernhard. Since I was a parent helper and in the classroom each day, I experienced how the teacher composed a unique tale for each child’s birthday. My daughter’s birthday story was about creatures who visited the sun to find out why he was hiding away--as it turned out, the sun had a cold. The animals returned to their homes by way of the rainbow bridge, which in keeping with the Waldorf tradition, connects heaven to earth.

A rainbow mother regards her cloud child

In kindergarten, the stories were simple folktales sometimes done with silk marionettes: “The Shoemaker and the Elves,” “The Seven Ravens” and “Snow White and Rose Red” were all favorites at my daughter’s school. At home, my daughter told her own stories using a few silks and wooden play-clips to make scenery, and her dolls plus a few marionettes for characters. Here is a link to a puppet show she did a year ago that hints at the story going on in her mind: My Daughter's Marionette Puppet Show.

Waldorf has influenced my creative storytelling as well. I have been making embroidered wool felt dolls that support storytelling in its most fluid form: children’s imaginative play. While some of my creations are based upon existing characters, the majority of the dolls I make are for children and their grownups to be inspired to create their own stories. Sometimes these stories reflect life’s challenges, and other times, they mirror desires and dreams. As I write in all of my shop listings, "I care about each doll I make, and hope you will find a doll in the shop you feel is yours." I wish the same for your stories.

--Farida Dowler is the blog author of Saints and Spinners and is an active member of Etsy's NaturalKids Team with a shop called Alkelda: Dolls for Storytelling. She is trained as a children's librarian, which is why she cannot resist recommending books she thinks you might enjoy.

* * *

Thank you for your inspiring words, Farida. Your daughter's Birthday Story sounds magical and I can imagine how proud she felt to be her, on her special day.

Please visit Farida's shop to see more of her gorgeous dolls and her blog for more of her wonderful storytelling wisdom.

Visit this link for the other inspiring posts in the Discovering Waldorf series.

Thank you Farida, blessings and magic to you.

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Irish Bunny wishes you a happy day with all the luck of the Irish.

Blessings and magic.

A Hummingbird's Nest.

Please enjoy a post from Spring last year.

* * *

A Good Man and I were having our coffee on the deck yesterday morning, basking in the warm spring sun and feeling very excited for the day ahead. 'LOOK!' whispered A Good Man, pointing to our 'wool tree'. There, hovering in the air was a magnificent hummingbird. He was dressed in his shimmering green suite and his red cravat and he was looking intently at the colorful wool roving on the tree. I could see him thinking, 'Oh, this will be perfect! She'll love me for this... I'm getting lucky tonight! Whoooo hoo!'. He grasped a tuft of wool in his tiny beak and pulled. Alas, he wasn't strong enough to get it off. He moved onto the next tuft, same thing... I could see him getting worried. On the third try, the lovely soft wool separated from the branch and off Mr Hummingbird buzzed, very happy with himself and his find. A Good Man and I felt just delighted that our 'wool tree' was really working. What a gorgeous nest our hummingbird was going to have... how lucky his chicks would be, nestled warmly in our colorful roving.

What do you think K's teacher brought into school this morning? A REAL hummingbird's nest, for the children to see. It was too sweet... tiny! As K put it... 'as small as a mini cupcake.' She used this description as when we wet felted our own nest, you can see it here, we didn't expect it to shrink... and shrink... and shrink until it was small enough to fit into a cupcake holder. It became so small, we dubbed it our 'hummingbird's nest'. As it turns out, our 'hummingbird's nest' is about double the size of the real deal. As you will see, the real hummingbird's nest was made of small sticks and twigs, a few feathers AND... colorful wool! Here it is, click on the photos to make them larger so that you can see the materials in the nest.

Seeing the colorful yarn in this nest did get me to wondering if someone else around here also has a 'wool tree'? I would very much like to meet them.

* * *

Blessings and magic.

This Nest is Best.

Please enjoy a post from last Spring...

* * *

We have been watching the birds building their nests. We see them dashing around with little twigs and sticks in their beaks and we hope, with all our might, that one might choose our tree next to the deck as the perfect spot for a nest. It is in such a good spot for a nest as we would be able to watch all the goings on with great enthusiasm. We know that the mommy bird chooses where the nest will be as we one of our favourite books is 'The Best Nest' by PD Eastman.
I like this page in particular as the little mommy bird reminds me of... myslef!We love to say together, 'I love my house, I love my nest. In all the world, This nest is best.'

However, no bird has chosen our tree yet. So we decided to make our own nest to put in the tree and hope a mommy bird decides it's just too good a nest to pass over.

We collected wool, or in this case, Alpaca fiber, given to us by a friend as it contained too much vegetable matter to be of any use to her. Perfect, as it turns out, for a nest! We also needed a big bowl of hot, soapy water and a smaller bowl to shape and felt the nest in.
We put the wool into the small bowl, added some of the hot, soapy water and kneaded. We kneaded and kneaded and kneaded, adding hot water all the while, until the fiber started to fasten together. We shaped it into the shape of the bowl.

When it was well felted, we realised that it would be a smaller nest than planned and so transferred it into a smaller bowl... and then a cupcake holder, squeezing the water out of it as we moulded it to she shape of the holder. We left it over night to dry.

And this morning... a soft, cozy hummingbirds nest!
We put it in the chosen tree where it looks too cute. It is really very well placed as the pine cone feeder is just above it (don't tell K or T that hummingbirds don't eat seeds...)

So, if anyone knows of a mommy hummingbird who is looking for the best nest, point her in our direction, would you please...

* * *

Blessing and magic!