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

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

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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Handmade Christmas Ornaments :: Dried Apples and Cinnamon

When I was 22, I spent a winter working in the delightful Austrian village called Kitzbuhel. I worked in a little family run pension. My job was to help prepare the food for breakfast and lunch for the hotel guests. In the afternoons, I was off, off to the ski slopes until well after the sun had set. Life was so much fun!

On Christmas Eve, the few of us who worked in the pension, were invited to the owners home for drinks. The owner was a wealthy Austrian and it was quite a posh affair. His house was magnificent but what has stayed with me for all these years, is the sight of his Christmas tree. It was the most spectacular Christmas tree I have ever seen. It was at least 10 feet tall and was decorated from top to bottom in edible ornaments... white marshmallow garlands, golden walnuts, pink frosted snowflake cookies. I had never imagined a Christmas tree to be so softly beautiful. I have thought of it often since then and have come to the conclusion that the reason why I found it so lovely was because every single ornament was handmade.

Some of the prettiest ornaments were made with dried fruit. Dried orange and apple slices. So, in a effort to give our tree some Austrian loveliness, the children and I made dried apple ornaments just like the ones I remember.

We cut apple slices and designed a little drying rack that we left outside for a couple of days. The weather has been cold and dry here, perfect for drying fruit, but if your outdoors is too moist, you can set up your drying rack in a cool and dry spot in your home.

When our apple slices were nice and dry, we strung them with a little raffia and added a stick of cinnamon.

They are so pretty, just as I remember from my magical time on the Alps.

Happy Christmas crafting,
Blessings and magic,
Donni

How to make Playdough Christmas Ornaments

On the day before Thanksgiving, when I had so much to get done for our massive FEAST  and my children desperately wanted to play with me too, we brought out the beloved playdough recipe. Together, we made such lovely colored playdough and then they played with it for hours and hours, making all sorts of fun little goodies. You can see our recipe and the cute little guys we made in this post here.

Yesterday, we used a little of this playdough (which we store for ages in the fridge) to make some pretty little Christmas Ornaments.

We rolled each color out flat with a rolling pin.

Then we cut out Christmassy shapes using my Christmas cookie cutters.

Poked a hole in the top of each using a skewer and sprinkled them with glitter.

We used my special vintage glitter that I found at an Estate Sale a while ago... can you see the store price sticker that says that a bottle of glitter costs 19c! Those were the days.

Teddy made a Christmas Tree.

We popped them onto wax paper and then into the oven for an hour at a low temperature of 250 F.

When they came out of the over, we let them cool and then tied a little Christmassy ribbon to hang them with, They are waiting to decorate our Christmas tree :-)

We love their colors and that the glitter sparkles in the winter sun.

 Just a reminder that Fairyfolk is having a Black Friday / Cyber Monday Sale... 10% off everything. Enter the code BLACKFRIDAY11 in the coupon box at Etsy checkout and Etsy will compute your discount for you.

Happy Christmas crafting.
Blessings and magic,
Donni