Contemporary Earth Mama

at the front window...

 

Last night in the front window, baby hammocks were made.  Sunny was skimming through Toymaking with Children with me, as I sought ideas for the coming holidays for the wee ones in our lives, and came upon the baby hammocks.

Five minutes later a little room was constructed just so between a chair and the rocker, and babies were laid in their hanging beds, and all was well with the world.

It never ceases to amaze me that life without the influence of media and television for children renders nothing but pure and innocent imagination.

What is it you love most about your children's imagination?

crafty fun

Today is my mother in law's birthday, and as we are up north to celebrate it with her, we decided to a) bake her favorite cake, b) make her requested dinner of homemade GF pizza, and c) craft something for her to add to the large collection of Halloween decor.  Last year we felted a black/green spider on a web of cream colored roving, and this year, felted pumpkins.

I found this little number and I've felted a few of them already.  They are so cute and super easy...Sunny decided to spend her time next to me on the couch finger knitting a new leash and collar for Campbell.

Any crafty fun in your day?

new collar for Campbell

(Photo taken by Sunny, age 6 AND 3/4)

Sunny came out of her quiet time this afternoon with a custom finger knitted collar for her beloved pup.  Above is Campbell modeling her new duds ::rather excitedly if I don't say so myself.  Complete with a spot for her tags to hang and a loop in which the leash clips in to, the two of them proudly demonstrated how they could walk together ( to the aforementioned co-op) by going outside to run around the house.

That is pure love.

snowflake prints

After being recently inspired by Brainstorm Studio ( amazing story, be sure to read her profile), I sat and stared at the windows in our home lovingly covered by large white snowflakes taped to them.  I stared at the snowflakes on these windows and though I thought them beautiful the first time I arrived home to see them everywhere, this moment particularly captured me when I realized every single of them is unique. 

Of course snowflakes are all different, I just hadn't really looked at the ones Sunny cut from paper.  I then realized I couldn't part with a single one as the potential for each design is so mighty.  This has me thinking...t shirts, napkin prints, homemade wrapping paper.  So out came the acrylic paints and into the closets we dove.  We grabbed a handful of shirts ( when one shops at consignment stores one need not feel guilty about painting on her clothing) and of course the one I chose was white.  Here's a little secret:  though I love the simple white t shirt, they don't last a second.  I think this one landed a chocolate protein shake stain within minutes, if not seconds, of being put on, and it's now covered in a Double Spade Sort of Design.

Here we are doing our work and enjoying the results!

 

a project for Valentine's Day

Another celebration is right around the corner, and what that really means is another excuse to make eat chocolate cake. My goal for that is to find a coconut flour based chocolate cake, so if you're the lucky one who has that recipe and want to share it with me, send it my way!

Valentine's Day was fun and simple last year with water felted hearts, which we actually made at Spring Hill as a family.  I went another step and made ( and realized I never took a photo of it, which I'll do and post later) a love pouch for Chad.  I know, sounds cheesy, but there's really no other name for it.  I blanket stitched the sides and bottom of a palm sized set of felt hearts together, and while stitching a little handle, left the top of the hearts open so as to create a little pouch.  On a piece of paper I wrote, "I love..." and tied it, with tiny knots in each corner, to the front of the heart.  I cut out several pieces of pink watercolored paper and wrote things I love such as:

• ...when you're patient with me
• ...that you listen to my incessant babble
• ...when you make the girls laugh
• ...that your first gift to me was a chainsaw ( I know, seriously)

Then, I hung it on our doorknob on Valentine's Day, and it now sits in our home office ( filled with wild life pictures which I am slowly but surely removing from the first floor of our house and by default are ending up on his side of the office-sigh...) above his desk hanging off of, yes, a painting of ducks and fish lures.  I thought perhaps he would proudly display it to all of his macho job site work buddies by hanging it on his rearview mirror.  NOT.

I found this project while looking for simple Valentine's Day crafting and love it.  We have several of these felt bags, and we L-O-V-E bags around here, though there's a certain Mr. Someone who'd rather we didn't have so many, but it's just like baskets and really, there's always a reason for another basket.  This tutorial is super easy and makes for a project that even Sunny could tackle.  In fact, she'd be tickled pink over this one.

So run along to play with your felt and remember to be remind all the other pretty felt colors that Easter is coming soon and they won't be neglected for long.

eggs and pancakes...perfect for Sunday morning

As Fannie spends so much time in her kitchen, I thought some additional food choices were appropriate.  As you can see, we used a felt glue, though I can't remember the name, and it didn't hold on the second pat of butter after the first round of play.  For the second and third batch of eggs and pancakes I made, I stitched them on and actually like the way it looks a lot better.  We decided to make these as a holiday gift for a cousin about the same age and for a little friend who nearly shares Fannie's birthday.

If you created homemade treasures for the holidays, we'd love to see them!

felt book

Below are photos of the wool felt book I made for Fannie's birthday.  It took about a week, but was actually really easy and the fact that I put it together in small snippets of time made it an enjoyable project.

She's in love with the letter "A" as Sunny has taught her how to look for "Annie".  Of course the cover needed an "A".  Filling the pages was easy, I just took into account the things she loves:  buttons, hands, ribbon, ducks, books with flaps, her dog and her family. Then I found space for each one of them.  I used a hole punch to make a hole through each page, then through the cover.  Sunny finger knit a long piece of yarn that I ran through and tied off, which also made for a dandy little handle.  This was deliberate as I can never trust my sewing ( or gluing) ability for that matter, and needed to be certain I could creep into the books pages to offer technical support should the need ever arise.

The beautiful thing about this project is that since watching me create this for Annie, Sunny has been slowly but surely creating one for herself.  Now I'm thinking a simple little book for each child for each birthday to capture the year behind them just might be in order.  ***Don't let me forget***!

I know, I know, the photo quality is just great, isn't it?  (Said with much sarcasm.)

...and there you have it.  She carries it around daily, wants to look at it every day before naps and is just thrilled there are two strings of beads in there...just for her.

 

homemade play dough

This morning Fannie and I took out our play dough and realized it was all dried up, just some commercial stuff given as a gift over a year ago.  With it being such a cold morning and with being all caught up in the long movie and comings/goings of two year molars, I thought Fannie would like getting her hands busy in kneading some warm homemade play dough.

The search for a recipe I have used before turned up nowhere, so I went to this site, which had a great recipe.  This one was fun and after I read the directions I remembered that somewhere along the way I had stumbled across a company that makes natural food coloring and cool chocolate kits.  Check them out here.  I'd rather use sparkles and food coloring that's better for my kids, and frankly I'd find more opportunities to use them if they were better for my kids.

We made our play dough, let it cool, and while still a bit warm, dove our hands in and were both delighted by the feeling of the dough.  I waited until then to add the food coloring for a more marbled effect, it looks swirly and cool.  If you want the color to be more full, add it while heating the ingredients, but then you're limited to one color per batch.  I was able to double this batch and make four marbled colors.

Now it's Sunny's turn, and she's eyeing the stack of four containers and mini rolling pins on the counter while eating her lunch.  This is for after quiet time, my dear girl.

next year's gift tags

I am so glad I haven't put the Christmas goodies away just yet, for today I stumbled across a great idea to repurpose your holiday cards.

The Long Thread suggests cutting your holiday cards into shapes that make you happy...tree/triangles, circles, squares or stars.  Then, using a hole punch, punch a hole for the ribbon, raffia, or twine to go through, and there you have it!

My idea was to use the outer rings from canning jars, for a smaller and larger tag.  This is really easy and fun for the kids to do, and you can use it as a lesson in the importance of recycling.  I can hardly wait to prepare for Christmas next year with this idea.

catching up

As I sit here at 8 pm, I thought I should share two things:  I am still in the pajamas I went to bed in last night, and didn't get my teeth brushed until about 3:00.  Kids in bed, Chad's playing hockey and I'm thinking over the last couple of weeks.  There are so many things to show you that I haven't had time to share.

Remember the pants I made the other day for the girls?  Annie's fit but Sunny's were a little on the tight side, so I had to make another pair today and have now learned a little about future pants making and feeling an addictive itch as I notice how many pair of cozies are turning to floods on Sunny.

My inlaws were here for the week:  two more people, a dog who can't hear, and throw in great-granny for a twenty-four hour spin in this little house and you can consider it full...but fun.  Chad and I snuck in late night hiking and snowshoeing, a weekend up north, a couple days without the babysitter, and lots of outside time with the kids.  Watch for the whole Mexican feast I whipped up for Christmas Day in a post coming to a blog near you, along with a great recipe that we can file under ones that lack the typical healthy seal of approval.

The wool book I have been talking about making for Fannie is complete, took a little over a week to throw together, but was super easy, so I'll be sharing that.  Now Sunny is putting together her own version for her quiet times.  Expect photos of eggs and pancakes made from scratch felt, and shiny new birthday crowns.

I was thinking I should have taken a before & after photo of our craft table, or work station, as Sunny calls it.  Looks like a bomb went off with shards of felt hither and thither, remnants of fabric on the floor, embroidery floss hanging off the table, patterns becoming wrinkled underneath the sewing machine and a plate with dried gingerbread crumbs and peppermint bark sitting forgotten on the shelf.

All of this meant that we used today to clean.  Chad took the basement, I took upstairs, and the girls jumped in where needed.  Armed with cleaning cloths, they dusted and utilized new pint-sized dustpans/brushes to sweep up little messes along the way.  It was the kind of cleaning where I could be found wiping cobwebs off the ceiling, and wondering how often people wipe down their baseboards, because I never do.  And yes, now I stink, because as mentioned above, it's after 8 pm and I am still in the pajamas I went to bed in the night before.  I have cleaned in them,  played outside in them, wiped my hands on them, wiped Fannie's nose on them, and never found the time to put on a bra...it was that kind of cleaning in pajamas day.