Silent Saturday.

Princess Ruby Sparkle Eyes

Blessings and magic for a wonderful weekend,

Donni

Friday's Nature Table.

Welcome, Friends!

Friday's Nature table is where we share our inspiration with each other. I can't tell you how many wonderfully fantastic ideas we have found from your links... your blogs, your creativity, your families, your loving... has touched my heart and enriched my life. Thank you all.

If you haven't participated before, come on... share the love :-)

All you need to do for your link to appear is add your name (or the name of your link) AND the address of the post you want to share in the boxes below... click 'enter' and your link will appear as the next on the list for all to enjoy.

You are most welcome to share this great resource on your own blogs... (save the above Friday's Nature Table button to your desktop and then add it to your blog as a picture gadget linking to this code...

http://themagiconions.blogspot.com/search?q=Friday%27s+Nature+Table)

Thank you to all who share and visit today.

Blessings and magic,

Donni

Discovering Waldorf - "Rhythms"

I have just been having too much Summer fun! Discovering Waldorf has suffered a little and I'm sorry for the lack of new guests lately. I have every intention of having a new post for you next week, but until then, please enjoy this great post from the past.

I also wanted to quickly bring your attention to my new Discovering Waldorf button above. Please feel free to share this link on your blog. All you have to do is save the above image to your desktop. Then, add it as a gadget 'picture' on your blog, linking to

http://themagiconions.blogspot.com/search/label/Discovering%20Waldorf

in the 'link' space of the gadget. Pressings this button on your blog should then take the reader to the list of Discovering Waldorf posts. Thank you for sharing.

* * *

I have the honor of introducing Nicole, from Frontier Dreams, today. When I asked Nicole to write a post for Discovering Waldorf, the first thing that came to my mind was how her life reflects the gentle rhythm of her home. She really seems to have worked out a clam flow to her family's day. Knowing the rhythm of their day, and what to expect next, is wonderfully soothing for a child. Thank you, Nicole, for introducing us to this lovely concept...

* * *

Rhythm in the Home by Nicole - Frontier Dreams

There are numerous aspects to a Waldorf way of life that are appealing to me, but the one that I hold closest to my heart, is rhythm.

Rhythm is the daily, weekly and yearly recurring activities in our lives. There is something so magical about such a simple concept. Children thrive on familiarity and consistency. It is a sense of security for them, they feel safe and reassured to always know what comes next, to have a predictable day, a rhythm they can count on. My children remind me of this every single day.

Is rhythm just a fancy word for schedule. NO. While they have similarities, rhythm is more about a gentle flow, a knowing of what comes next, whereas a schedule is more rigid and by the clock. I sometimes have to remind myself that rhythm is not cut and dry. It is not some regimen that needs to be followed strictly, "to a T." That will just drive me crazy and destroy the peacefulness that rhythm is supposed to bring about. For example, it is not important for us to have lunch at noon exactly every single day but for us to have lunch after we have read our mealtime blessing and before some quiet play time. This way my children always know what is coming next and knowing what to expect makes them feel relaxed, safe and happy.

Rhythm already surrounds us all. The flow of the universe. The beating of our hearts...but nowadays it takes a conscious effort to bring it into our home lives. As Rahima Baldwin Dancy (Midwife and Waldorf early childhood educator) put it, "Doing things rhythmically simplifies life."I couldn't agree more. Our family rhythm has saved us on more than one occasion.

I am often asked how I introduced rhythms into our lives. I started with simple verses and songs throughout the day to lead us from one thing to another. When we wake up and my children are still half in the dream state, we say our morning verse. This helps to gently wake them up and prepare them for getting out of bed to make breakfast. It is not an abrupt transition but rather, a gentle flow. Once I felt this new rhythm was comfortably established I was able to start adding more daily activities into our rhythm... an activity for each day of the week, and so on. I took it slowly but surely, just one step at a time, to not overwhelm myself or the rest of my family. When things started to move more fluidly and really came together easily, is when I knew I had a good rhythm that worked for our family.

Of course our rhythms have been sculpted and changed over the years with the arrival of our youngest daughter and our oldest becoming more grounded in this world, but that's the beauty of rhythm. It's fluid enough that changes can be gently added. We recently had a major change in rhythm by taking a ten-day drive cross-country to move from Virginia to Oregon. Just the thought of my husband and I, our two daughters, two dogs and three cats all in the same van every day for ten days in a row made my head spin. Thankfully rhythm rescued us. Our days were long, fun and a bit exhausting, but our nights, oh, our nights were perfect. We followed our nightly rhythm, just as if we were back in our home, and everything returned to normal no matter how out of our element we were.

While every family's rhythm will be different, I thought I'd share an overview of ours. This is just a brief glimpse into our lives and is not a list of our rhythm in it's entirety.

Daily rhythms include:

waking verse

mealtimes

activities of the day (i.e. if it's Monday then we bake)

cleaning

quiet time

laundry

tending to our animals

outside time

bedtime

Weekly rhythms include :

Monday is baking day

Tuesday is painting day

Wednesday is handwork day

Thursday is drawing day

Friday is crafting day

Saturday is gardening day (when it is not gardening season we go for nature walks or hiking on this day)

Sunday is resting day (a day just spent at home as a family)

Monthly rhythms include:

hand-washing our woolens (2 times a month)

beeswaxing our wooden bowls (the last Sunday of the month)

errands & grocery shopping (1 - 2 times a month)

Yearly and seasonal rhythms include:

birthdays

holidays

planting our garden

travel

If you are interested in incorporating more rhythm into your home, a wonderful resource isYou Are Your Child's First Teacher by Rahima Baldwin Dancy. I still thumb through that book quite often. Another great resource is Beyond The Rainbow Bridge by Barbara J. Patterson. For verses and songs that help with the daily transitions of one thing to another, I have found "Seven Times the Sun" by Shea Darian, and "This is the way we wash-a-day" by Mary Thienes-Schunemann to be my 'go to' resources. I have also found other Waldorf families to be extremely helpful, supportive and resourceful when I hit snags in our rhythm or just simply need others to relate to.

Warmly,

Nicole

* * *

Thank you Nicole, for this wonderful wisdom. I have a feeling that our home might be a calmer place for all from now on, if I can keep the naughty clock from always sneaking in.

Please visit Nicole's blog, Frontier Dreams. It is a gorgeous place to spend some time, the kind of place you want to curl up in, with a warm quilt, hot coco and a cat purring on your lap. I always come away from reading her words with a feeling of peace in my heart.

Look here for the other fantastic posts in the Discovering Waldorf Series.

Blessings and magic to you today, Nicole... thank you for sharing your rhythms with us today.

Lastly, I'd like to share a little poem found on Nicole's blog...

Cooking and cleaning can wait till tomorrow,
For babies grow up, we've learned to our sorrow.
So settle down cobwebs, dust go to sleep,
I'm nursing my baby and babies don't keep.

-Unknown

Corn Pancakes.

Yummy corn pancakes for breakfast... a sneaky ways to add veggies into our diet. We love them, the pancake taste, the sweetness of the corn and they are so easy to make. 5 minutes is all they take, from start to finish.

So, ingredients (they are so easy, I know them by heart)

* 3/4 cup flour (white or wholewheat or whatever)

* 1 t Baking Powder

* pinch of salt

* 1 egg

* 1 cup frozen corn

* 2 T's oil

* 1/3 cup milk (may need a little more depending on how big your egg is)

Put the dry ingredients into a bowl. Make a 'volcano' in the middle of the flour. crack in your egg, add your oil and your milk and stir them around in the middle of your 'volcano'. Each stir brings a little dry ingredients into the wet mixture and in a couple of minutes your batter is lovely and smooth. It should be the consistency of heavy cream... if your's isn't, add a little more milk until it feels right.

Add your corn and stir.

Put a little butter or oil into a hot pan. Drop in a spoonful of batter and cook until golden brown on both sides.

Yum... enjoy!

Blessings and magic,

Donni

Rhythm of the Home.

I can't tell you how much I enjoy the online magazine, Rhythm of the Home. It is a delight... a gentle meander through all that I love. It's articles, stories, discussions and interviews are delivered by moms 'just-like-us'... creative moms, gentle moms, determined moms... and dads, sometimes. It's pages highlight the beauty in treading this path we have chosen... the path of decluttering the lives of our children, of finding the soul in all we do and letting our children discover the magic that is childhood.

I adore this article on making boats from sticks and string. What an important lesson for our children... that they can make their own toys from nature's treasures.

I love how this dad discovers that we learn as much from our children as they do from us...

I love the idea of giving a dress 3 lives... how could we think to get rid of such a pretty thing just because it's become a little short for our fairy princess. With just a little altering, we can turn it into a beautiful skirt... and when that becomes too small yet again... what a lovely pillow it can be...

And, of course, how could you not be totally enchanted by these little chefs baking mud pies...

So, please, if you haven't already, do yourself and your family a favor and visit this magical journal. There are many super articles to inspire you... enjoy!

Blessings and magic,

Donni

Lanterns, pressed sweet peas and little birdies.

For some reason, Little Miss K decided that she did not want to make a butterfly lantern with Mr T the other day... Oh NO! She had something much more daring in mind. She had pressed some of our sweet peas a while back and has been saving them for something REALLY special.

A Summer Lantern was just the thing. She carefully undid her flower press to

reveal her beautifully preserved blooms...

Wonderfully colorful petals and leaves and intricately twirled suckers.

She used some glue to stick them to her yellow, sun-colored lantern.

And then we used my hot glue gun to stick little birdies that we had bought from a craft store into place. She chose a hot pink ribbon to hang her lantern in her room. It is a 'day lantern' she says... it is to remind her that the sun gives us all life... oh, the sweet innocence of the 6 year-old mind!

I aslo wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have commented so sweetly on my new banner. Thank you! It is the result of a few lessons in Photoshop. It's fair to say that I have a new hobby... playing with photos. Oh... is there no end to fun things to learn?

Blessings and magic,

Donni

Silent Saturday.

A Fairy in our Garden.

Blessings and magic,

Donni

Friday's Nature Table.

Welcome, Friends!

Friday's Nature table is where we share our inspiration with each other. I can't tell you how many wonderfully fantastic ideas we have found from your links... your blogs, your creativity, your families, your loving... has touched my heart and enriched my life. Thank you all.

If you haven't participated before, come on... share the love :-)

All you need to do for your link to appear is add your name (or the name of your link) AND the address of the post you want to share in the boxes below... click 'enter' and your link will appear as the next on the list for all to enjoy.

You are most welcome to share this great resource on your own blogs... (save the above Friday's Nature Table button to your desktop and then add it to your blog as a picture gadget linking to this code...

http://themagiconions.blogspot.com/search?q=Friday%27s+Nature+Table)

Thank you to all who share and visit today.

Blessings and magic,

Donni

Make Butterfly Lanterns

Our Butterfly Lantern hangs from our pergola outside, glowing in the sunlight and, also, glowing in the moonlight.

It is ever so pretty, in a completely summery way.

To make it, we needed...

* pretty, double-sided, scrapbooking paper.

* a paper lantern

* glue

* scissors

On a white piece of paper, I played around with the scissors to make a template for the butterfly wings. Then, I folded the pretty scrapbooking paper so that it would fit the wings I had drawn and put my template wings on the fold so that, once cut, would open up into butterfly wings.

I cut around my wing template to make pretty butterfly wings for the scrapbooking paper.

Teddy Bear painted glue in the spot each butterfly was to go and we stuck our pretty paper butterflies in place.

Even when the real butterflies are resting for the day, our butterfly lantern brings the wonder of summer onto our deck.

Blessings and magic,

Donni

Recycled Mag Hearts.

Oh, my dear friends... how I have missed you all. I'm so terribly sorry for my sudden and abrupt departure from this space. My dearest darling computer crashed last Monday and has spent the entire week in the computer ICU undergoing, what is comparable, to open-heart surgery. Poor darling, had to be completely restored. Alas, I just couldn't bring myself to use A Good Man's PC, so accustomed to my beloved Mac have I become. I did try once but it felt like I was trying to write in French, so I gave up completely and waited for my loyal companion to be well enough to return here with me. Welcome back, my dear friends.

While we were away, we made the most the most of unexpected free time. To show you all how much we love you, we made these darling heart mobiles using recycled magazines. I love my mags but they do pile up. Here is a sweet way to give new life to their pretty pages.

All you need are...

* old magazines

* scissors

* ribbon

* a stapler

Kitty helped me by cutting a pretty and colorful page into 6 strips, about 2 inches wide.

Then, she lined them up in three rows of two strips and cut each row 1 inch shorter than the next.

We then created two rows from the cut strips... each row with a long strip, a middle sized strip and a short strip.

We laid a yard of ribbon along the center of one row.

And set the other row of magazine strips on top of the ribbon... but with the shorter strip touching the ribbon, the middle sized strip next and the longest strip on the outside.

Kitty then stapled the ends together.

Then, with help of course, she looped the shortest strips (the ones closest to the ribbon now) over to make a heart shape with them.

I helped her staple the paper heart to the ribbon to hold it in place.

The same with the second strip of magazine paper... the second heart layer.

And the same with the third layer, making a beautiful hanging heart mobile.

Our hearts hang from the pergola outside and twist and whoop joyfully in the breeze... they really are lovely.

So, thank you to all of you who join me on this magical journey, your friendship and sharing is a blessing in my life.

Blessings, Love and Magic,

Donni

Darling Little Birdseed Cakes.

I have been wanting to make these sweet little birdseed cakes for ages.

YAY, I finally remembered to buy gelatine at the supermarket... it has been on my shopping list for months but, alas, it was one of those things I just could NOT remember. At last, as I was looking through the spice isle for Cream of Tatar (to make playdough), GELATINE! suddenly popped into my head.

We have made the peanut-butter-on-pine-cone-feeders many times before and so were very excited to try something different. K is not a peanut butter person and it has always worried her that perhaps some birds wouldn't like peanut butter either. Sweet child.

Here are the simple ingredients;

1 oz Gelatine

Birdseed

Boiling Water

Molds

Yarn or string (for hanging loops)

In a mixing bowl, add 1 oz Gelatine and 1 cup of boiling water and stir until all of the Gelatine has dissolved.

Then add birdseed. We used about 3 cups but this amount will depend on the kind of birdseed you use. You want the mixture to be pretty stiff.

Spoon the mixture into your molds.

Cut your yarn for the hanging loops, knot one end and stick the knot into each seed cake. Cover the knot with a little birdseed mixture to make sure it will set firmly.

Now, you have to wait for the Gelatine to set. This takes quite a while, so amuse yourself in the meantime by making yarn earrings...

You can leave the cakes at room temperature to set. We, however, wanted them to set as quickly as possible, so we put them in the fridge.

To get the sweet little cakes out of the mold, dip the mould quickly into hot water. They should slide right out.

Voila! Birdseed cakes for the birds.

We have hung ours all over our garden and have taken great delight in watching the birds twitter around them. Our birds are VERY happy with their new treats!

Blessings and magic,

Donni