Helping The Birds Make Beautiful Nests

We have really enjoyed watching the birds building their nests this year. We have a family of crows who live in the tree in our back yard. Apart from the terrible squarking they make in the early mornings, we love them. They are particularly fun to watch when they are building their nests as they choose big sticks to build with, sometimes even longer than themselves. And, they are funny because they bicker and fight and often make each other drop their sticks and then try to find them again. We have had many a laugh watching them this spring.

With our garden birds in mind, we have a tradition of helping them make their nests as comfy as possible. In years past, we have decorated branches with wool roving for the birds to use as nesting material. But this year, we decided to do something different and made them a yarn ball instead. We fashioned a bit of wire into a ball to hold the yarn. The birds have been helping themselves all week and we are delighting in the visions of their eggs, nestled comfortably in their colorful yarn nests.

To make our yarn balls, we needed nice bendable wire, wire cutters, a ball and bits of yarn.

We cut a long length of wire and wrapped it around the ball to get a round shape, twisting it around itself at the join.

Then we extracted the ball and used the dimensions we already had to make our yarn holder. 

When we were finished it looked like a wire pumpkin! We added a little hook for hanging.

Then we cut our yarn into different lengths for the birds.

Stuffed the yarn into our handmade yarn holder.

And hung it in the tree for the birds.

Oh, what pretty nests they'll have.

Be sure not to miss out on our Fairy Garden Series and Contest.

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Pretty White Yarn Dandelions

 Our lawn look so beautiful in the early morning sun. For some reason, it is full of dandelions! I know I should be ashamed of a lawn full of dandelions...  but how could one feel anything but pure joy when seeing the slanting rays of sunshine illuminating these pretty little puffs of magic? And then to see the children pick them like fairy children and blow their wishes into the crisp air... it's truly a phenomenon!

We have picked a few to bring their beauty inside but alas, they don't last long in a vase. Kitty suggested we make our own... and so we did.

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I found this white yarn at my favorite yarn shop a little while ago... it's a mohair blend and so wonderfully fluffy - I knew we'd be able to find the perfect project for it.

White yarn, cardboard, scissors and collected sticks is all you'll need.

To make a pompom, cut some recycled cardboard into a circle. The circle must be roughly as big as you want your dandelions to be. Make a hole in the center of the cardboard circle and cut around the hole to make a small circle. Then cut a pie-shaped slit in the cardboard circle. This is your pompom maker.

To start, cut a length of yarn about 6 inches long. Set in on your cardboard pompom maker, sideways, crossing through the middle, like in this photo. This piece of yarn is gong to be covered by the pompom and is going to be used at the end to tie off your pompom.

Wind the yarn around the radius of the cardboard circle, using the slit to get into the middle each time. Around and around many, many times until your cardboard is totally fat with fluffy white yarn.

When the cardboard circle has been wound to capacity, find the piece of yarn you placed lenghtwise at the beginning, pull it tight and tie it into a knot.

Now, insert your scissors into the yarn pompom and cut around the circumference of your pompom, freeing the yarn from the cardboard.

Your pompom might be a perfect circle, but sometimes it's not. I hold my pompom over the trash and trim it into a perfect circle with my scissors.

Then we searched our garden for some wonderfully rustic looking sticks and stuck them into our pompoms with our hot glue gun... Voila!!! Super sweet dandelions that will keep in a vase forever ;-)

They are very pretty on our dining room table.

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Finger Knitted Flowers.

I was the luckiest mom on Mothers Day. I received two very precious gifts... a hand-dyed silk scarf from Teddy that he had painted for me in school (I'm wearing it now as it's a rainy Spring day here in Southern California). From Kitty, I received an utterly gorgeous finger knitted flower that she made for me at school too. Her flower was so beautiful that I asked her to show me how to make a few more to go in my antique apothecary bottles. Oh my... I am utterly in love with them!

'It's so easy, Mom!' she enthused. 'All you do is finger knit some pretty yarn into a long rope, roll it up into a spiral and sew it onto a stick!' As I am someone who has never finger knitted before and don't sew very often, I couldn't help being skeptical at the 'easy' part. But, true to her word, Kitty showed me how to make these beautiful yarn flowers in a couple of minutes. Really... our three were made in about 20 minutes.

All that's needed is:

* prettily colored yarn (the more textured the better)
* a big needle
* sticks


To finger knit, tie the end of your yarn into a slip knot (make a loop, thread the long end of the yarn through the loop and pull tight)


A simple slip knot.


Put the slip knot over your left index finger (if you are right handed). Adjust the knot to fit snugly over your finger. The long end of the yarn is the one hanging down... the short end is the one Kitty is holding in her other fingers.



Kitty calls her left hand (the one the the slip knot attached to it) her 'needle' hand. She calls her right hand, her 'working' hand. All you have to remember is left... needle. Right... working.


So now, to finger knit, with your working hand, loop the long end of the yarn over your needle finger, in front of your slip knot.


Clinch the yarn onto your needle finger with the thumb of your 'needle' hand.


With your working hand, pick up the slip knot and pull it over the second loop.


And right off your needle finger.


You now have only your second loop on your needle finger. Start the process again... make a loop over your needle finger with the long end of your yarn, in front of the yarn loop that is already on your needle finger. Slip the first loop OVER the second loop you have just placed there and slip it right off your needle finger. Pull tight, leaving just the third loop 'knitted' onto your needle finger. Your finger knitting will form a long finger knitted loop below your needle finger. This is what it will look like...


Continue finger knitting until you have a long yarn rope about the span of your outstretched arms, finger tip to finger tip (about a yard or two). Knot it securely so that it won't unravel and cut it from your ball of yarn.

Now, because we want our yarn rope to be thicker than just one strand, we finger knit the rope we have just finger knitted... as Kitty calls this process, we 'double finger knit' it.

Again, make a slip knot. Try to get the slip knot as close to one end of your yarn rope as possible so that you have one very short end and one loooooooong end.


Thread the slip knot over your needle finger. Loop the long end over your needle finger, in front of the slip knot.


Pull the slip knot over the second loop and off your needle finger. Pull tight. Begin again... loop, first loop over second loop and off needle finger. Pull tight. Again. Again.


Again. Again. Until your whole first rope is finger knitted into a lovely thick second rope.


Roll up your lovely thick yarn rope into a spiral.


Sew your spiral into place so that it doesn't unravel when left on it's own.


Kitty is so confident at sewing because she doesn't try to sew it perfectly neatly.


In fact, the rougher the spiral is sewn, the more charming your flower looks.


Kitty sewed the sticks onto the back of the flowers.


Voila! Pretty yarn flowers!!


They look beautiful as the centerpiece on our diner table.


Happy finger knitting.
Blessings and magic,
Donni

Make Sparkly Yarn Ornaments.

We have enjoyed decorating our tree this year with handmade ornaments... pretty little treasures we have made ourselves. I can't tell you the joy and pride my children feel when they hang one of their very own decorations on the tree. Instantly, their little creation becomes magical. It's a beautiful thing to see.

If you had told me a while ago that we'd be hand making our ornaments for our tree this year, I would have laughed unbelievingly... 'Never!' I would have said... 'Not us... we don't have it in us!' I would have declared. Wrong! We all have it in us... all you need is the understanding that perfection comes second to the joy you feel at having made something special.

Today, we made Sparkly Yarn Ornaments... they are very sweet and such fun to make as they require the popping of a balloon! This craft was a firm favorite of my Mr T.

What you need to make your Sparkly Yarn Ornaments is...

small balloons

A pin

Colorful yarn

Glue

Glitter Glue

A paint brush

Begin by squeezing glue into a recycled dish (we used an old plastic yogurt container that we could just throw away when we were done). Add a little water to the glue to thin it out a little... you'll want your glue to be the consistency of light cream.

Dip your yarn into the glue mixture.

Submerge your yarn in the glue and let it soak for a few minutes.

Wrap your glue soaked yarn around one of your small balloons.

Around and around until your balloon is nicely covered with yarn. Tuck the loose end to secure it in place.

Set your wet, yarn covered balloons on a sheet of plastic to dry in the sun.

As the yarn dries, the glue in the yarn hardens and your ball becomes firm.

When your ball is almost dry, you can paint it with glitter. We used gold and silver glitter.

This was K's favorite part of the craft as she is a glitter girl extaordinair... her idea of making something nice is to put copious amounts of glitter on it... in her view, anything can be fixed with glitter!

The more the merrier.

Set your glittered yarn ball in the sun to dry.
And now for the fun part... popping the balloons. For us, it happened so quickly and with so much whooping and joyful clapping that capturing it with my camera was impossible. Mr T delighted in this activity... the balloon makes a wonderfully loud 'POP' and then a curious 'Woosh' as it pulled away from the glue. We were very sad we only had 4 to pop!

Gently take the popped balloon out from the inside of your sturdy yarn ball.

Tie a piece of ribbon into a bow for hanging your Sparkly Yarn Ornament and find a special spot for it on your tree.

Our Sparkly Yarn Ornaments hang on our tree in pride of place... they really are pretty.

Blessings and magic.