What Have We Been Up To?

What have we been up to?

Well...

We moved into our new home... in the middle of a Southern Californian heat wave.

Cooled ourselves in the sprinklers.

Grampa visited us for 11 days.

We had a garage sale... made $500!!!

Spent our $500 laying grass and sprinklers in the back yard.

Played with packing noodles.

Play the piano.

Lost Baby BunBuns :-(

Found Baby BunBuns :-)

Eating salads and fruit and cold soup.

What have you been up to in your last days of Summer?

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Sunrise Surfing

Teddy has recently discovered that he is a surfer! We wake up before the sun and set out to beach. The oranges and pinks of the sunrise sky is breathtaking.

As we walk over the sand to where the waves break, we watch the sun breaking the day orange through the palm trees.

The water is warm.

My Good Man steady's Teddy for the wave and then our surfer-boy paddles and then gets a few seconds of 'standing up'!

It's such fun... Isn't he a dude!

Only in Southern California :-)

What new things have you been doing this summer?

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Watermelon, Watermelon and More Watermelon

Watermelon and Summer are best friends, don't you think? For us, nothing says 'Summer' quite like a wedge of cold watermelon, eaten outside so that the juice can run down your arm and drip off your elbow into the grass.

Yes, this is all very 'childhood' but, if you are like me, you don't really like all that stickiness. So, when I saw this revolutionary way of eating watermelon the other day on Pinterest, I couldn't wait to try it out. THUMBS UP!!!! This is definitely an un-messy way to eat a wedge of watermelon!

Make a small incision in the middle of the watermelon rind and insert a popsicle stick into the slit. No more messy, juicy fingers!

This summer, we have been getting very adventurous with our watermelon and have discovered some cool ways to enjoy it.

Our favorite so far has been our watermelon smoothies. They are THE BEST!!

Blend together two cups of watermelon, a spoonful of sugar, a cup of milk and a cup of ice. Pour into a glass... add a little whipped cream, a mini wedge of watermelon, a bendable straw and a fancy cocktail umbrella and Voila!  You'll feel like you are on a beach in Ko Samui!

Do you have any nice watermelon recipes to share?

I think you'll also enjoy the Banana Popsicles we made recently...

And, don't forget to enter our Fairy Garden Contest that closes tomorrow!

Blessings and magic,
Donni

My Hydrangea Flower Fairy

There has been magic in our garden again. 'Where is Kitty?' I wondered. Then I spied her, sitting in the shade of the passion fruit vine with a heap of hydrangea flowers in her lap. She was making a flower crown.

She had a roll of sellotape and was sticking the stalks of the flowers together.

Like a fairy in the summer shade.

My beautiful flower fairy!

Left to their own devices, little minds can work pure magic.

And, just a little reminder... we are nearing the end of our Fairy Garden Contest You have until August 1st to enter your Fairy Garden to have a chance to win one of the magical prizes.
Here is a link to the Fairy Garden Page that has all of the important Fairy Garden information.

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Play is a Child's Work

Here is Kitty, hard at work... playing, creating. Sculpy is her new toy. She makes these tiny little figures, talking up a whole, amazingly complex, scenario as she creates.

The girl with the birthday cake.

The camp-fire.

The cook, cutting bread with a knife.

The curly haired princess looking at herself in the mirror.

Each color is carefully selected from the jumble in her box.

As she sits on the little footstool and fills the plank with life.
 

 It's a privilege to watch her work/create/play!

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Make a Treasure Moblie

So, here's the big question... 'What do you do with all those little treasures your kids collect?'

This is a biggie in our house. My kids are big collectors! Every trip to the beach results in a basket of shells, each hike brings pine cones, rocks and bark and even a walk-around-the-block leads to the discovery of some sort of treasure.

Of course I can't throw anything away! Oh no!!! The misery that would ensue from me throwing away a special rock or stick would be, quite honestly, detrimental to everyone's health! So, what do I do with the mounds of 'special things'?

Make a mobile!

Here is the mobile we made today...

It's hanging on our door in place of a wreath... isn't it lovely.

So, to make a treasure mobile you need:

* collected treasures
* copper wire (which is wonderfully pliable and can be found at hardware and craft stores)
* pliers
* sticks
* string
* scissors

Once you master the wonderful trick of wrapping your treasure in copper wire, anything can be added to hand on your mobile.

Start by cutting off about 6 inches of copper wire with pliers. Hold one end of the wire in the pliers and twist it, making a hanging loop. Easy!

Now, hold the loop against your treasure with your thumb and wrap the wire around it. Make the same loop at the bottom end for it to hang. Easy! Seriously, even Kitty finds it a breeze.

Here she is wrapping a shell...

When you have wrapped all your treasures in copper wire to make them hangable, use your string to tie them onto your sticks... you'll need at least one long stick for the top hanging bar, and two smaller sticks for the hanging bars below. We used our yarn-wrapped sticks from before to add a little color.

Now for the fun part... you have to hang your mobile and see how it balances... this was a great learning opportunity for Kitty as she worked out how to make all the different weights of her treasures hang nicely. One rock was too heavy and a thread spool had to be added to the other end for the stick to hang straight. The shell was also too heavy and needed to be moved to the middle. All this, Kitty worked out by trial and error. It was magic for me to see her grasp this difficult concept.

At last, all her treasures were perfectly weighted and her mobile hangs beautifully.

10 treasures down, 1000 to go :-)

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Stick and Acorn Men

A few years ago, we made these sweet little acorn guys on one of our summer camping trips and I thought I'd share them again now...

We have decided that it is a necessity to take 'magic eyes' on a camping trip. We call these 'magic eyes' as just about anything can be turned into an enchanting creature with these sweet little things. The are particularly nice as they come with adhesive on the back and so can be stuck onto anything without using messy glue. They can be found at most craft stores.

Look at how these googly eyes can turn a simple stick in to a little stick man.

Here is 'Mr Grumpy' and 'Mr Oh-My-Gosh'.

Here's 'Mr Happy'.

Here's Miss Smiley and her acorn friend.

Here is my little Teddy and his stick friend.

Here's 'Mrs Pine Needle'.

And here is the entire army!

Amazing that a little packet of sticky-eyes can create such an assortment of creatures. Don't forget to take some with you on your next summer camping adventure.

Blessings and magic
Donni

Make a Rainbow Mason Jar Flower Vase

We are feeling summery! The sky is bright blue, we are eating colorful fruit and the kids are even picking out their tie-dye clothes to wear every day. Our color is RAINBOW!

So, when Kitty and I sat down to make a pretty flower vase for the flowers that are blooming in the garden, I wasn't at all surprised when she picked out the rainbow yarn.

 

This is what we needed to make our pretty rainbow vase:

* an old mason jar
* double-sided tape
* my trusty glue gun
* rainbow yarn (found at our local craft store)

We began by sticking a length of double sided tape, lengthwise, on each side of the mason jar. This tape will hold the yarn in place while you wrap the jar.

Then, I put a dab of glue from my hot glue gun onto the bottom rim of the jar, stuck on the end of our rainbow yarn and Kitty started to wrap the jar with the yarn. The double-sided tape made it so much easier for her as it held the yarn in place as she wrapped.

Don't you just LOVE this rainbow yarn?!

When Kitty reached the top of the jar, I applied a little more glue from my hot glue gun to hold the end in place and there it was... our 'seriously gorgeous' mason jar vase.

Now we have an excuse to pick fresh flowers every day (which, by the way, Kitty added to her chore list for a fee of 25c!)

I'd love to see the summery crafts you have been doing with your children... link to them in the comments so that we all can see.

Happy rainbow crafting,
Blessings and magic,
Donni