Let's make an Easter Basket.

We are at the grocery store.
Kitty : Mom, we really have to get these Cadbury's Chocolate Eggs!
Me: I don't think so, Kitty, it's not Easter yet.
Kitty: But Mom! (I can see her little brain working furiously) Mom, I want make an Easter Basket and we can keep them in my basket until Easter.
Me: Oh, what kind of basket do you want to make?
Kitty: I want to, um, sew one.
Me: Great!
Kitty: I'll need your help.
Me: OK.
Kitty: So, can we get the Easter Eggs?
Me: OK... but only for your basket.

(I'm a pushover, I know, but the little girl said she wanted to SEW a BASKET!)

And, sew a basket we did!

When we got home, we collected an old felted sweater, a needle, some thread and some yarn.
Here is a tutorial on how to felt a sweater if you've never tried it before and here's a previous post with a super tip for making learning to sew VERY child friendly.


We began by cutting a circle from the felted sweater. This circle is going to be the base of the basket so it can be any size you want your basket to be.


Then, as we talked about the dimensions of a circle, we discovered that if we wanted to measure the circumference, we could use a piece of yarn! If we laid the piece of yarn all the way around the outside of the circle, the circumference, we could determine how long the material for the sides of our basket had to be.


Indeed, this was a very exciting discovery!


We cut the yarn the right length and then laid it on the felted sweater and cut a length of felted sweater exactly the same length as the piece of yarn... just long enough to fit all around the circumference of our circle.


Despite all the excitement in the working out of our formula, we were amazed that the length we had just cut did, indeed, fit all the way around our circle base! 'It worked!!' Kitty exploded.

She put the 'sides length' on a flat surface and the placed the circle on top of it...


And then she started to sew the two together.

With great concentration, she sewed the 'sides piece' all the way around the circle.


Until the two ends joined.


Then, she sewed the join together.


We turned the basket inside out (which is actually the right side up) and were again amazed at how sweet it looked, all of the stitches now hidden inside the basket... especially when we flipped over the top to make a pretty rim... Kitty is quite the designer!


We cut a length of felted sweater for the handle.

Sewed it on to our basket.



Voila!!! Kitty, can you believe it, actually DID sew an Easter basket! Of course, the chocolate Easter eggs went straight into the soft and fluffy basket.


I adore this photo as it shows just how incredulous she was at the fact that she really had sewn an Easter basket!


Of course an egg did get eaten... an then another. And then 'Little Brother' got into them and had a whole handful... which luckily entitled Kitty to have a whole handful too, and so on, until Mother tried them and then they were gone, leaving the sweet little basket empty. Not to worry, Kitty demised... we'll just get more the next time we are at the grocery store!


Happy sewing with your child,
Blessing and magic,
Donni

Handmade Christmas Gifts - Paper Mache Nest.

Our granny loves birds nests. She has a collection of discarded nests that she has picked up on her walks. They are so pretty to look at and a wonder to see how intricately the husband birds have woven them together.

Her love of nests in mind, the kids and I have made her this nest for Christmas.

We made the shell of the nest from paper mache. Teddy enjoyed ripping an old newspaper into long strips.

We use an all natural flour and water recipe to make our paper mache.

* 1 part flour to 5 parts water.
* Mix the flour with about 1 TBS of hot water until if forms a smooth paste. Add boiling water.
* Boil for a few minutes
* Allow to cool

We used balloons as our molds. We blew up the balloons (had a little play with them) and then covered them in strips of the newspaper dipped in the flour paste.

Add layer after layer until the newspaper is thickly packed.

I love this flour paste as I can let my kids get wonderfully messy without fearing that they are also getting covered in nasty chemicals.

Set paper mache balloons in the sun to dry. When dry, use a box cutter to cut an oval opening into them... and, yay, pop the balloons.

We decided to cover our nest in a fragrant mixture of dried chamomile and lavender.

Cover the 'nests' in glue and roll them in the dried herbs.

Leave in the sun to dry.

Line the inside with dried moss... we use two different kinds.

Add a few wooden speckled eggs.

We think Granny will LOVE her Christmas gift! (but I must admit that it's sooooo sweet we can hardly give it away)

Merry Blessings and magic,
Donni

Home of the Apple Pie.

On a whim, we packed up the RV and set off on a camping weekend. We headed to Julian, the home of the apple pie...

Such a quaint little town, old fashioned and sleepy and filled with pie shop after pie shop filled with delicious pastries and steaming pies.

We had our fair share,

And then headed out into countryside to explore the spring beauty.

Luscious green hills dotted with oak trees.

And wild flowers galore...

And wild turkey nests with 11 gorgeously speckled turkey eggs...

*(footnote: I must remember the image of A Good Man stumbling across Mrs Turkey sitting on her nest - I honestly can't decide who got the biggest fright; my big strong husband or poor Mrs Turkey!)

We love camping and the family fun it brings. Coloring together...

Cooking on the fire together and telling stories in the light of the candle...

Playing together in the dirt...And even rolling in it too!
As one of my favorite sayings goes... A dirty child is a happy child. Judging by the color of my children's bath last night... they must have been VERY happy children indeed!

Blessings and magic.

Decorate an Easter Egg with Pressed Flowers.

Today we continued our Easter Crafts and used our pressed flowers to make a beautiful flower Easter egg.

We pressed the Black Eyed Susan's about two weeks ago. K had great fun collecting the best specimens from our vine for pressing. She chose pretty orange flowers and lovely green leaves.

She arranged them neatly on the flower press that her granny gave her for her birthday. Then she placed the top board in place and screwed the flower press tight. It was very hard to leave them alone to dry for two weeks... a lesson in patience for sure! (if you don't have a flower press, give an old encyclopedia a new life as a flower press... it will work just as well)
Two weeks later, with great excitement, she opened her press.

She gasped at the beauty of her pressed Black Eyed Susan's! She was amazed that they had been pressed completely flat and yet held their color so wonderfully. 'Just like a paining but only real!' she exclaimed!

We gathered an egg shell that we had previously cleaned out (the tutorial on how we blew our eggshells clean is here) and applied glue all over it.
Then K carefully stuck her precious pressed flowers onto the eggshell.
A few flowers...
And a few leaves. As K discovered, working with pressed flowers is very delicate work and requires gentle, careful, firmness.
We left our pretty flower egg in the sun to allow the glue to dry and then marveled at the pretty Easter creation we had created.

Blessings and magic.