Sparkly Valentine's Votives

One thing we love about the shorter days of winter, is that it can be fun to eat our dinner by candlelight. We get fill our dinner table with all the candles we have. It feels so festive and pretty as the light dances on our faces. And then, of course, it's super fun to sing 'Happy Birthday' 1000 times as we blow them out at the end of the meal... or at least it's super fun for Teddy as 'Happy Birthday' is one of his favorite games.

We thought it would be fun to add some Valentine sparkle to our candle collection. So, we got out our mason jar collection, our glitter and some glue and look what we made... pretty pink Valentine's Day Candle Votives!

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All we needed was old jars, glue, glitter, paintbrushes and some pretty pink ribbon.

With the glue, we painted hearts on the outside of our jars... all around them.

Then we set our jars in a bowl and sprinkled them with pink glitter.

The glitter sticks only to the glue hearts.

Cut a length of ribbon.

Add a dab of glue and glue it around the top of your pretty, glittery jar... tie a pretty pink bow to stick onto the ribbon.

And Voila! Valentine's Day Candle Votives that sparkle so prettily in the candlelight.

Happy Valentine's Crafting,
Blessings and magic,
Donni

How to make a Lantern for Winter Solstice.

Today is Winter Solstice... the shortest day of the year and tonight will be the longest night. It is a time to celebrate and mark the year by inviting the light back into our lives. In all this darkness, it is a time to reflect inwardly and ask that light and warmth grow our hearts too.

In honor of Winter Solstice, we made a winter lantern. We collected 'nature bits' that remind us of winter. As we worked, we talked about the things we love about this time of year and the things we look forward to as the sun returns. My children feel magical when they are holding a lantern... it signifies the capturing and nurturing of light... a power they know they posses inside. I love to see the excitement it brings.

To make a lantern like ours, you will need...

A small balloon

Tissue paper (we chose white for the winter snow)

Glue

Nature bits

Scissors

Bendable wire

Tear the tissue paper into small strips.

Squeeze glue into a recycled dish (we used an old yogurt tub and put it in the recycling bin when we were done with it).

Dilute the glue with a little water (you want the glue/water mix to be the consistency of light cream).

Dip a tissue paper strip into the glue and wrap it around the round end of your balloon.

Continue until the round end of your balloon is covered in a layer of tissue paper...

Stick your winter 'nature bits' to your tissue papered balloon and cover with another layer of gluey tissue paper. This layer seals your 'nature bits' into your lantern.

Set your gluey tissue papered balloon in the sun to dry. As it dries, the glue hardens, making the tissue paper firm and sturdy.

When the tissue paper is completely dry, pop the balloon with a pin. Once again, T found this the BEST! He is our official 'balloon popper'!

As the balloon pops, it comes away from the hardened tissue paper, leaving a lovely round lantern.

Cut a length of wire, about 20 inches long, for your lantern's handle. Poke one end through one side of the tissue paper and twist to fix in place. Repeat with the other side.

Voila! You have a delightful winter lantern.

Before dinner, we lit our lantern. T and K took turns holding it as we sang our favorite Christmas carols and I could see the light in their hearts grow with each second that passed. Light and warmth is now kindled within us for us to nurture throughout the year ahead.

I want to end this entry by taking you to this beautiful winter lantern made my Luciana and her family.

Blessings and magic.

Make a Christmas Candle Holder.

Whenever we walk on the beach, we always come away with an armload of beautiful driftwood. There is always some to be found... little treasures from faraway lands, bleached pale from their long ocean travels.

So, what do you do with your armloads of driftwood, you ask?

Sometimes we use it to build a magnificent castle...

Other times, we make sweet candle holders to decorate our home for Christmas.

To make our candle holders, we needed...

driftwood,

a few candles

a drill with a drill bit as large as the candles.

K decided where the holes should go and I drilled them for her, just the right size for our candles to fit in snugly.

We wiggled the candles into their holes and our candle holder is ready to put in a special place.

We will light our candles at dinner time. If you are going to make some, please make sure that the dirftwood you use is stable and wont fall over. Also, never leave them unattended as if they burn down, the driftwood will catch alight.
A favorite way to get my kids to eat dinner is to remind them that they can blow the candles out ONLY when they are finished. They clean their plates... It works every time!

Blessings and magic.

How to make Beeswax Window Hangings.

We are having so much fun decorating our home this Christmas with natural, handmade treasures. Today we made beeswax window decorations. I adore these! The smoothness of the wax and the warm caramel color is so pleasing to look at. But the thing I love most about beeswax window hangings, is when the winter sun shines through the window and warms the wax... the wax gives off such a wonderful aroma... a natural, outdoorsy, honey smell that's so lovely!

To make these lovely Christmas decorations you will need...

Beeswax (found at craft stores or online... try www.etsy.com or the lovely farm of one of my readers, Natural Earth Family Farm. They sell organic beeswax... yum!)

small tart moulds

tooth picks

a recycled jar

ribbon

To melt our wax, we made a bain-marie on our stove by boiling a small pot of water and then placing our jar of wax in the boiling water.

The beeswax turns a gorgeous caramel color when melted and smells so lovely.

We then poured our melted wax into our tart moulds. Be careful as melted wax is hot! We always keep a dish of iced water on hand just incase we burn ourselves.

After a few minutes, the wax starts to harden. When it was the consistency of peanut butter, we placed a toothpick in each mould. This would create the hole for the hanging ribbon.
Be sure to place your tooth pick in the right place for hanging.

After a few hours, the wax had hardened. We wiggled the toothpicks out of the wax.

Neat little holes remained.
They looked so pretty as the wax cooled.

When they were fully cooled and hardened, we eased them out of their moulds.

K used a skewer to widen the holes a little.

We tied pretty ribbon through the holes.

And hung our beeswax decorations in the window.

Already, our home smells warm and cozy like honey!

If you haven't already entered our enchanting Giveaway, there is still time... your kids will LOVE you if you win and you might even get your treasures in time for Christmas. The winner will be drawn and announced on Friday evening, 18th Dec... so pop on over to enter!

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.