Name the Bird...

Now this is a bird after my own heart!

Can you guess what his name is?

Yes, he is a woodpecker, but what type of woodpecker?

I'll give you a clue...

YOU GOT IT!! He is an Acorn Woodpecker! Look at what he does!

He makes hundreds of little holes all over the tree trunk and then collects acorns to stick in the holes! Isn't he funny!

Look how hard he has worked...

A Good Man remarked that if I was a bird, I'd be an Acorn Woodpecker. So there you have it! What bird would you be?

Our Earth Day Giveaway ends on Earth Day, 22 April, please enter for your chance to win some really sweet goodies.

Blessings and magic.

Making Beeswax Acorns.

When we made our Beeswax Valentine Hearts yesterday, we had a little melted wax left over. I remembered such a fun project making beeswax acorns and y'all know how crazy I am about acorns. It didn't take much convincing to get K excited too. Aren't they just adorable?

To make our little beeswax acorns, we needed...

Beeswax (available in my Fairyfolk shop)

Acorn caps

marbles

playdough (here is a link to our home-made playdough recipe)

Melt the beeswax over a bain-marie (check out yesterdays post to get home-made bain-marie instructions)

While the wax is melting, roll your playdough into a log and press the marbles into it.

Gently extract your marbles, leaving round indents in the playdough.

When your beeswax is melted, pour it into your home-made acorn mould and let it cool.

When the wax has cooled, but is still slightly warm and pliable, peel it out of the palydough.

Break you round wax balls apart and round them gently.

Choose acorn caps that are just the right size for your little beeswax balls and, Voila! The are our table centerpiece at the moment and I can't help gazing at them lovingly... they are too adorable for words.

As I know there are many of you who will want to make some of these little treasures for yourself and will need the materials, I have listed organic beeswax in my shop, Fairyfolk. I will include 6 marble-sized acorn caps with your beeswax purchase if you leave a message that you are wanting to make these acorns with your wax in the 'note to seller' part of the purchase form.

The PUZZLED GIVEAWAY ends on 24 January 10, so there's still time to pop over for your chance to win a gorgeous, customized puzzle.

Thank you to the wonderful A Foothill Companion for sharing this sweet idea.

Blessings and magic.

Make a Thanksgiving Walnut Candle.

Continuing with our Handmade Holidays, today we made sweet little walnut candles. They are enchanting little gifts from nature, made with walnut shells and beeswax. They will flicker warmly on our Thanksgiving table.

We needed...

walnuts (halved and shelled) and other pods

a jar of beeswax

candle wicks

and scissors

We used 3 walnut halves, a seed pod and a big acorn cap.

Place you candle wick into the walnut and measure how long you need your wick to be. Cut it accordingly.

We needed 4 shorter wicks for the walnuts and acorn cap and one longer one for our bigger pod.

Now it is time to melt the beeswax. I made a bain-marie by filling a pot with a few inches of water and bringing it to the boil. When your water is boiling, put your jar of wax in the boiling water. This gently melts your beeswax. Please be careful... boiling water and melted wax is hot!

When we work with melted wax, I always have a bowl of iced water prepared. Touch wood, we haven't burnt ourselves as we are very careful, but I feel safer knowing that if an accident happened, I could put a burn in cold water immediately.
(Note: this is from a reader who says... "I wanted to let you know, though, that burns should never be put in ice water, nor should a burn be iced. You should not even use cold water, it can cause cold damage to the sensitive skin. Instead, immerse the burn in room temp or cool water to help bring down the swelling and help with the pain, or run cool / room temp water over it")

Once the beeswax is melted, it takes on a gorgeous golden glow... just like honey, as K noticed. And it smells wonderful too.

I use a paper towel when I pour melted wax. Dab a little melted wax onto the paper towel and then fix your walnut to the wax.

This holds your walnut in place for you to pour the wax safely into.

Pour the melted wax right up to the rim of the walnut.

After a few minutes, the wax hardens enough for you to insert your wick. The cooling wax holds your wick in place.

We made 4 candles... 2 walnut, 1 acorn and 1 seed pod.

Don't they look charming? K thinks they are just the right size to fit on a bunny's table... I had a wonderful flash of her imagination when she said that :-)

We lit one just to see that it really does work. It gives off the sweetest honey smell... fragrance from Mother Nature herself.

The others, we have packed away in a special place... we are saving them to decorate our Thanksgiving table with. We will sit around our table smiling and loving and laughing while our little candles flicker happily, reminding us of all we have to be thankful for.

Check out our other Handmade Christmas decorations and these bright nature-inspired Felted Wool Acorn Christmas Tree Decorations here.

Blessings and magic.