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

WIP - Fairyfolk

Here are a few of the little goodies I've been working on for Easter...

Easter Bunnies

Easter Nest

Easter Chick

If you want to see some more little needle felted Easter cuties, visit my shop, Fairyfolk.

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Handmade Gifts - Let's make a Ball.

On our quest to make handmade Christmas gifts this year, we made our girl cousins Flower Fairies the other day. Today, we made our boy cousins wonderfully colorful woolen balls.

We used my wool scraps and wet felted them to make the balls. All we needed was wool roving (found online), liquid dish washing detergent, warm soapy water and elbow grease. Kids love wet felting projects... its cathartic to work with the wool and the warm soapy water. I find that the beginning of wet felting is often frustrating for children so I always start off and then hand the project over to my kids when the wool has somewhat bound.


Start with a big handful of colorful wool roving.


Roll it gently in your hands to round it. Put a little dish washing liquid into the palm of your hand and smooth it gently over the wool blob. Keep 'smoothing' it as if you were smoothing a clay ball. Add a little warm water to the ball and smooth again.


Soon, the wool will soap up and you will continue rolling it between your hands... very gently at first as if you were rolling a delicate glass ball. Keep adding a few drips of warm water. After a few minutes, you will feel the wool ball firm up. When this happens, you can apply greater pressure in your rolling. Roll it around and around in your hands, firmer and firmer.


Your woolen ball will get hard and seamless. When it is the desired firmness, rinse it very well and leave it in the sun to dry.


Voila! We have made this ball for our little cousin, Spencer, who is 1. It is just the right size for little hands to grasp. The texture is wonderful too and I'm sure he'll mouth it with delight. We have made one for our other cousin, Finley, too. We know that Finley, who is 3, will love his too. It's a super firmness for a young child to learn to play catch with... it's just right for throwing and will not hurt if Fin if he misses catching it and it bonks him in the face.


Merry Blessings and magic,
Donni

Pretty Spring Blossoms.

Isn't Spring magical? Colors creep from the greyness of winter... slowly at first, shyly... a few green heads poke out of the earth, one or two colorful blossoms are eager enough to start the trend. Emboldened by the brave, the rest follow until the landscape is a burst of color... pinks, yellows, purples, blues... The trees, the meadows, the fields are bright with life. Spring sings in color and the birds mirror her tune. Yes, Spring is magical!

We have been admiring the beauty of Spring every day and when I asked K if there was anything she really wanted to make to remind us of Spring, her reply was, 'Blossoms'. Here is our pretty wool version of Springs' beauty.

All we needed were a few bare branches, wool roving and my trusty glue gun.

We picked out our wool, choosing soft spring colors. We pulled off little tufts and rolled them into balls, warming the wool in our hands. Mr T loved this wonderfully tactile activity.

We chose purple, blue, pink, lavender and white blossoms... cotton candy colors as K called them.

I used my glue gun to put a small amount of glue onto the branch,
And stuck a woolen ball onto every node.
Here are our blossoms... little tufts of spring loveliness!
I hope you all had a wonderful Easter.

Blessings and magic for a happy Spring!

Make a Mossy Spring Wreath.

To welcome Spring into our home, we made a Mossy Spring Wreath to hang on our front door. It has a golden bow, little spring-colored paper roses and a tiny nest with robin's eggs inside it and we say 'Hello Spring' whenever we open our door!

This is what we need:

* A wreath frame

* Dried Moss (found at a craft store)

* Tacky Glue

* Sticks for spreading the glue

* Hot glue gun

* Paper flowers

* Pretty Spring-colored ribbon

* Little blue eggs (make your own using this tutorial or find some at a craft store)

* A nest (make your own from grape vine or find one at a craft store

Cover the wreath with ample glue...

Find a little boy to help you spread the glue using the sticks.

And then I'm sure he'd love to help you stick the moss to the wreath.
When you have generously covered the wreath with moss, making sure that no part of the original wreath frame shows, leave it in the sun until the glue is dry.

When it is dry, find a little girl to help you trim the straggly bits of moss so that your mossy wreath looks neat.
With your glue gun, put a blob of glue onto the moss where you want the nest to go. Stick it on fast. Use your glue gun again to gently stick the little blue robins eggs into the nest. Use your glue gun again to stick the pretty paper roses into place.

Hang your pretty Spring wreath with the ribbon, tying a lovely bow at the top and Voila! What a pretty wreath you have to welcome in the Spring!

Blessings and magic to you today!

A Hummingbird's Nest.

Please enjoy a post from Spring last year.

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A Good Man and I were having our coffee on the deck yesterday morning, basking in the warm spring sun and feeling very excited for the day ahead. 'LOOK!' whispered A Good Man, pointing to our 'wool tree'. There, hovering in the air was a magnificent hummingbird. He was dressed in his shimmering green suite and his red cravat and he was looking intently at the colorful wool roving on the tree. I could see him thinking, 'Oh, this will be perfect! She'll love me for this... I'm getting lucky tonight! Whoooo hoo!'. He grasped a tuft of wool in his tiny beak and pulled. Alas, he wasn't strong enough to get it off. He moved onto the next tuft, same thing... I could see him getting worried. On the third try, the lovely soft wool separated from the branch and off Mr Hummingbird buzzed, very happy with himself and his find. A Good Man and I felt just delighted that our 'wool tree' was really working. What a gorgeous nest our hummingbird was going to have... how lucky his chicks would be, nestled warmly in our colorful roving.

What do you think K's teacher brought into school this morning? A REAL hummingbird's nest, for the children to see. It was too sweet... tiny! As K put it... 'as small as a mini cupcake.' She used this description as when we wet felted our own nest, you can see it here, we didn't expect it to shrink... and shrink... and shrink until it was small enough to fit into a cupcake holder. It became so small, we dubbed it our 'hummingbird's nest'. As it turns out, our 'hummingbird's nest' is about double the size of the real deal. As you will see, the real hummingbird's nest was made of small sticks and twigs, a few feathers AND... colorful wool! Here it is, click on the photos to make them larger so that you can see the materials in the nest.

Seeing the colorful yarn in this nest did get me to wondering if someone else around here also has a 'wool tree'? I would very much like to meet them.

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Blessings and magic.

This Nest is Best.

Please enjoy a post from last Spring...

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We have been watching the birds building their nests. We see them dashing around with little twigs and sticks in their beaks and we hope, with all our might, that one might choose our tree next to the deck as the perfect spot for a nest. It is in such a good spot for a nest as we would be able to watch all the goings on with great enthusiasm. We know that the mommy bird chooses where the nest will be as we one of our favourite books is 'The Best Nest' by PD Eastman.
I like this page in particular as the little mommy bird reminds me of... myslef!We love to say together, 'I love my house, I love my nest. In all the world, This nest is best.'

However, no bird has chosen our tree yet. So we decided to make our own nest to put in the tree and hope a mommy bird decides it's just too good a nest to pass over.

We collected wool, or in this case, Alpaca fiber, given to us by a friend as it contained too much vegetable matter to be of any use to her. Perfect, as it turns out, for a nest! We also needed a big bowl of hot, soapy water and a smaller bowl to shape and felt the nest in.
We put the wool into the small bowl, added some of the hot, soapy water and kneaded. We kneaded and kneaded and kneaded, adding hot water all the while, until the fiber started to fasten together. We shaped it into the shape of the bowl.

When it was well felted, we realised that it would be a smaller nest than planned and so transferred it into a smaller bowl... and then a cupcake holder, squeezing the water out of it as we moulded it to she shape of the holder. We left it over night to dry.

And this morning... a soft, cozy hummingbirds nest!
We put it in the chosen tree where it looks too cute. It is really very well placed as the pine cone feeder is just above it (don't tell K or T that hummingbirds don't eat seeds...)

So, if anyone knows of a mommy hummingbird who is looking for the best nest, point her in our direction, would you please...

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Blessing and magic!

Blossoms for Birds.

Here in Southern California, Spring has definitely arrived! Our nights are cool, our mornings are crisp and our days are warm and sunny... it's lovely weather, my favorite time of the year. The squirrels come out, the jasmine blooms and the birds start collecting treasures to build their nests with.

We have a spring tradition that we call 'Blossoms for Birds'. Each year as Spring approaches and we start to notice the birds building their nests, we decorate a bare tree branch with lovely soft wool for them. We find a branch.

Saw it to the right length for little people to reach even the top branches.
And then we put the bare branch in a spot in the garden, just beyond our deck, where we can watch it from our dining room. It's best to put the branch in a visible place, somewhere where you can watch it, undetected by the outside creatures.
Collect a basket of spring-colored wool scraps. I let K choose any color she wanted from my precious stash.
Decorate the bare tree with the wool, winding it around the branches and twigs.
Timone, our squirrel, came to see what we were doing.
She caused great distress by climbing down our Blossoms for Birds tree, nearly knocking it over and making K very angry... "This is for the BIRDS, Timone!" K scolded.
We were able to placate her with a few nuts while we finished decorating our wool tree.
It looks so pretty, covered in colorful tufts of wool, however, a pretty tree is not why we made our Blossoms for Birds Tree... it's for the birds to build their nests with!
All Spring long, we'll watch from our dining room table as the neighborhood birds are attracted to the colorful wool. They'll twitter about in a frenzy of excitement at the lovely soft wool they've found. They'll take a colorful bundle in their beak and fly off with it to build their nests. Just imagine what their nests will look like... pink, blue yellow... so pretty and soft for the sweet little baby birds.I know that not many of you will have colorful wool roving scraps lying around, so I have listed for purchase a few packets of colorful wool bits in my shop. Enjoy!

Blessings and magic!