Words of Light for the New Year

From time to time, my dear friend, Marie, will bring us Words of Light and share her needle felting with us. Marie is a wife, a Mother and a full time needle felt artist with two online shops. She lives the peaceful life in New Zealand, surrounded by green organic gardens and beautiful trees. Being surrounded by Mother Nature gives her the creative energy to put light into her works of art. Her wish is to warm peoples hearts and ignite in them a stirring of their spirits. Please visit Marie's Etsy shop, SoftEarthArt and her Blog, Softearth's World.

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The Little Moon Child

The little Moon child looked at the twinkling stars and smiled.

She loved their white light.

It shone out over the earth and she knew that people were gazing at her and making wishes.

The new year would soon be here, the wonder of Christmas was over.

People were wondering what the new year was going to bring.

If one takes the time to look at the stars at night , or early in the morning, before the sun is up.

One can see the little moon child smiling at you and you will know that your wishes will come true.

Love and light  Marie

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Thank you, Marie... may all your wishes for 2012 come true.
Blessings and magic,
Donni

Friday's Nature Table

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)

Welcome, Friends. I want to thank you all for the wonderfully inspiring links you share here on Friday's Nature Table. Kitty and I go through them each week and are often amazed at the super cool things you all do. You all rock!

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.

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Discovering Waldorf :: Dressing Children Simply

Why do Waldorf Schools insist on 'logo-free' clothing? Here is a lovely article from Cara of Natural Family Crafts about Dressings Children Simply.
Thank you for your gentle words, Cara,

I also want to share this lovely article about Waldorf Inspired Real Play.

If you want to read the other articles in the Discovering Waldorf Series, please visit the Discovering Waldorf Page at the top of the blog.

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Merry Christmas to All!

Our little family is having a superb Christmas with my darling little brother and his beautiful wife who are visiting us from London. Aren't we lucky. We had a sweet family Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve last night, complete with real mince pies and Christmas pudding alight with brandy! The highlight for the kids was being able to choose one gift from under the tree to open. Kitty chose her smallest and Teddy chose his biggest! Funny that.

Today, we travel down the coast to have a huge Christmas lunch with our wonderful friends. We miss, like mad, our loved-ones who are so far away... but we are happy and grateful for what we have.

Here are a few photos of my favorite ornaments decorating our tree this year.

Happy Christmas, Happy Christmas!
Blessings and magic,
Donni

The Fort Under The Table

Kitty and Teddy have been on winter break from school this week. On Monday, they built a gorgeous fort under the dining room table using all of my table cloths so that the whole table is closed in. It has remained like this since and they have played endlessly in 'The Fort Under The Table'. They have eaten their meals together in there, they have played games in there, they have read to each other in there and of course, they have examined their gifts in there... many times.

They have comfy eiderdowns on the floor, a set of Christmas lights up and an old telephone in case someone rings?

So much sibling love has happened in the 'Fort Under The Table' that A Good Man and I haven't minded eating our dinners on our laps at all :-)

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Friday's Nature Table

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)

Welcome, Friends. I want to thank you all for the wonderfully inspiring links you share here on Friday's Nature Table. Kitty and I go through them each week and are often amazed at the super cool things you all do. You all rock!

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.

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Handmade Christmas Gifts :: Crazy Crayons

Teddy and Kitty will be giving handmade Crazy Crayon Christmas gifts to their friends this year. Not only do these make super cute gifts, they are a wonderful way to get rid of all of those broken crayons lying around. Although the kids don't know this yet, Santa will be bringing them lovely new crayons and so I was eager to recycle the old ones to make space for the new.

Use a fun mold for your Crazy Crayons and make sure it is oven safe.

Your kids will love the breaking part if this project... when else are the encouraged to break their crayons into tiny little bits? Mix all the colors together to make a kaleidoscope of color.

Set them in the oven at a very low temperature (150 F) for about 20 minutes or until they are gently melted.

allow them to cool and then gently pop them out of the molds.

The colors meld together making a crayon of many colors. 

Kitty remarked that she'd like to take one along the next time we go to a restaurant as she will have all the colors she needs to keep her busy for ages :-)

Happy Christmas Crafting,
Blessings and magic,
Donni

Handmade Chirstmas Gifts :: Painted Peg People

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Kitty and Teddy are each getting a set of themselves for Christmas this year. It's sweet (and funny) how they often play 'brother and sister' and now they can play 'brother and sister' with their new peg gnomes.

I made them using the little peg people forms you can get at any craft store... mine came from Michaels.

I used a wood burning tool I've been dying to use to draw the outlines onto the little wooden peg people and write the children's names on the bottom of each but a black fine tipped permanent marker will work just as well. I colored in the details with colored permanent markers and then sealed them with a coat of hodgepodge.

I tried to make them look like themselves... Teddy with his golden hair and blue eyes and Kitty with her new short hair and long eyelashes.

And then I put each set in a little box, wrapped them sweetly and put them under the tree. Under the tree is getting fuller and fuller and brother and sister are having an exciting time trying to guess what's inside each gift. This one is about the size of a Rubik's Cube and Teddy thinks it might contain a pair of rain boots for him. I love how Kitty, who of course knows that rain boots would never fit into a package that small, smiles with him and agrees that rain boots would be nice.

Happy Christmas crafting,
Blessings and magic,
Donni

Handmade Christmas Gifts : God's Eyes

I know I am not alone in thinking that handmade gifts are by far the best. All gifts are nice when they are given with love, of course, but to be honest, I'd rather receive a roughly sewn 'kitchen towel' with a red potato stamped heart on it (clearly made by a 7 year old) than a perfect store bought one. I'd rather get a mismatched wooden beaded necklace (clearly made by a 4 year old) than a diamond encrusted one... really, I would!

So, with our tight budget this year, we have endeavored to make all of our Christmas gifts.

The ones we have been working on today are God's Eyes. They are made from sticks picked up in the garden and yarn. God's Eyes are a craft from the Huichol tribe of Mexico. We think they are just beautiful with their wonderful color and rich texture.

To make them, find two sticks the same length.

Tie them together with yarn to form a cross.

Tie your first yarn color to the stick close to the center of the cross. Loop it over a stick, pull to the next stick and loop over it in the same direction as the first loop... pull to the next stick and loop the same way again.

You will see a wonderful pattern start to develop.

When you feel like it's time to change the color of your yarn, cut the one you have been using and tie the end to the beginning of your new color. Continue looping as before. You can stick to two matching colors, or add as many as you like.

When you come to the tops of the sticks, cut your yarn leaving a length for a hanging loop. Tie it onto the stick and your God's Eye is ready to hang.

We have a few lovely God's Eyes as ornaments on our tree.

But these two are going to my brother and sister in law. We chose colors that we knew would compliment their home and there's nothing like a little handmade goodness to bring magic to any space.

Happy Christmas crafting,
Blessings and magic,
Donni

Folded Paper Christmas Origami Stars

We spent the first day of our Christmas holidays making and hanging our folded paper Christmas origami stars. I love this Waldorf craftThis year we used the Waldorf watercolor paintings that Kitty brought home from school. They are a gorgeous mix of warm colors... yellows, oranges and reds. Perfect for Christmas.

 And, we made a huge one to hang on or front door.

Although these stars look hard to make, they are amazingly easy. Both Kitty and Teddy loved making them. Kitty can make them all on her own but Teddy needs help getting the folds just right. Here is a link to a previous tutorial on how to make folded paper Christmas origami stars with step by step directions.

Happy Christmas crafting,
Blessings and magic,
Donni

Inspiration

Photo by DovieMoon on Etsy

"A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you. And then you have to put it back into the sky. And it's the most painful thing you'll ever have to do and that you've ever done. But what's yours is yours. Whether it’s up in the sky or here in your hands. And one day, it'll fall from the sky and hit you in the head real hard and that time, you won't have to put it back in the sky again.”
― C. JoyBell C.

Blessings and magic, 

Donni

Friday's Nature Table

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)

Welcome, Friends. I want to thank you all for the wonderfully inspiring links you share here on Friday's Nature Table. Kitty and I go through them each week and are often amazed at the super cool things you all do. You all rock!

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.

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Learning Math with Gumnuts :: Second Grade

I love Waldorf education so! Kitty is in Second Grade. One day a week, her class has 'outside school'. The children and their wonderful teachers start the day with a 20 minute walk to a local park. The rest of their school day is spent having their lessons under the sky, amongst the trees, squirrels and fresh air. On 'outside school' days, when I'm going about my business, I can't help making a little detour past the park to get a glimpse of them. It warms my heart to see them playing freely as part of their Second Grade Curriculum.

Today, after 'outside school', Kitty and I had a little special time together at our local cafe. Over our hot chocolate, we talk about all kinds of lovely things. One of our threads of conversation went like this...

Me: I saw you playing under the big tree in the park today as I drove past.

Kitty: No Mom, we weren't playing.

Me: Oh. What were you doing under the big tree then?

Kitty: We were collecting Gumnuts for our Math Lesson.

If I had learned Math with Gumnuts that I had collected, perhaps I wouldn't be so scared of it today!

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Discovering Waldorf : : Waldorf Curriculum

I am often asked about the Waldorf Curriculum throughout The Grades. Here is a link to a Grade by Grade Waldorf Curriculum list from the website Waldorf Answers.

To read the other articles in the series, please visit the Discovering Waldorf Page at the top of the blog.

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Last Minute Christmas Gifts

If you are anything like me, you are still frantically trying to find Christmas gifts! I leave so much to the last minute and then it's so hard to find the perfect gift. But don't worry friends... if you still have special gifts to find, look no further than my wonderful sponsors...

The Enchanted Cupboard - magical wooden toys and silks.

Skipping Stones - intricate handmade jewelry.

And, welcome Natural Kids - a collective of artisans, creating heirloom quality and natural products for children and their families.

 Periwinkle Sky - utterly enchanting signed prints, original prints and signed original paintings.

Laleebu Toys - Sewn and needle felted dolls, puppets, costumes and toys.

Felt On The Fly -  an abundance of pure wool felt in an amazing selection of 96 colors. Heirloom quality felt - the felt of choice for Waldorf crafts, fine needlework, paper crafting projects and more.

 

A Child's Dream Come True ... Natural crafts, toys and more to nurture the child's sense of life and imagination.

A Little Garden Flower and Waldorf Essentials - Waldorf inspired mentoring and homeschooling essentials.

Stubby Pencil Studio - Stubby Pencil Studio offers eco friendly kids art materials and school supplies like crayons made from soy - not petroleum; stationery, greeting cards, sketchbooks and journals made from 100% post consumer recycled paper - not virgin trees; pencils made from sustainably harvested wood and recycled newspapers - not dying forests.

Thank you ALL for your continued support :-)

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Handmade Christmas Ornaments :: Dried Oranges

The kids and I are loving making Christmas ornaments this year from simple everyday things. Today, pretty ornaments made from dried orange slices.

When we dried our apples to make these ornaments, we also dried some gorgeously orange orange slices too.

We hung them outside to dry for a few days.

Our Southern California winter is great for drying fruit as it's cool and dry and we've had a fair share of Santa Anna's to help us along. But, if your climate is a little moist to dry fruit outdoors, a cool dry spot in your house will work just as well.

When they were nice and dry, we squeezed a little glue around the white rind of the orange.

And then sprinkled a little of our vintage glitter onto the glue...

Tied a little festive Christmas ribbon onto our dried and glittered oranges and marveled at what a pretty ornament something as simple as a slice of orange can make.

Now, we just have to stop the baby bunny from trying to eat all of our edible ornaments!

Happy Christmas Crafting,
Blessings and magic,
Donni

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