Sewing Lesson: Felt Heart

Hazel received a gift card (well actually several) for her birthday. With one of them she bought a children's sewing machine. She has really wanted a sewing machine since I sew so much.Her little sewing machine does a chain stitch and if you are not careful you can pull all the stitches out when you remove the fabric from the machine, but she loves it!

She has been practicing on scraps of fabric I have given her, but I wanted to find some simple project where she could actually make something. I found one on Pinterest. The website it comes from is in an Asian language, but the pictures were enough for me to figure it out. To make some simple felt hearts you need a piece of felt, a sewing machine and some scissors. 

1. Taking a piece of felt, fold it in half the long way (if you want you can cut it in half the long way--I found I liked just folding it). 
2. Stitch close the fold.
3. Unfold the felt and fold it over your stitches (so the stitches are inside the fold). 
4. Stitch close the cut edge.
5. Cut your felt into "strips". Each strip is a heart.
6. Now you can hand sew them to be a wreath or a garland. The site I got this from used wool felted balls in between hearts for the garland. You could also use other large beads.

Now I need to hand sew ours to make a garland. It is such a fun and easy sewing project and it got Hazel using her machine (though the felt was a bit thick for her machine) for something useful. I secured the ends on the ones she sewed, so we would not lose all the stitches. 

For some more Valentine's Day Ideas check out:

• For the Love of Geometry: Geometric Love Poems
• Strawberry Heart Muffins
• Felt Heart Gift--Hand Sewn
• Lavender Heart Sewing Lesson (Hand Sewing)
• Preschool Made Simple Valentines
• Valentine Tea Party
• Valentine Swap & Lots of Valentine Crafts
• My Valentine's Day Pinterest Board

Groundhog Day

February 2 is Groundhog Day here. This is the first year I think Hazel will truly understand the tradition and is looking forward to watching television tomorrow morning to see if the Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow or not. Now interesting enough Groundhog Day stems from Candlemas. Now the first time I heard about Candlemas was in the Waldorf School, but I didn't really understand what it was. According to old European sayings, the weather of Candlemas predicts the length of winter. 

The Old English Saying is "If Candlemas be fair and bright, Come, winter, have another flight; If Candlemas brings clouds and rain, Go winter, and come not again." A Scottish version is "If Candlemas Day is bright and clear, There'll be two winters in the year." A German version is "For as the sun shines on Candlemas Day, So far the snow will swirl until May; For as the snow blows on Candlemas Day, So far will the sun shine before May." American farmers have the saying, "If the sun shines on Groundhog Day; Half the fuel and half the hay." 

Since Punxsutawney Phil moved to Gobbler's Knob in 1887, he has seen his shadow 100 times with not seeing his shadow 17 times and no record 9 years. Groundhogs, also called woodchucks, eat dandelions, clover and grass and are members of the squirrel family. (Sources: Wikipedia and Stormfax)

For Hazel to get some understanding of Groundhog Day, we took some books out of the library. In each of these books (pictured above) a groundhog determines the weather on Groundhog Day. In Geoffrey Groundhog Predicts the Weather by Bruce Koscielniak, Geoffrey finds it easy the first year to predict the weather, but the next year he oversleeps and is woken up by the crowd gathered outside his burrow. He has no idea about his shadow with all the lights from the cameras and such of the crowd. He finally predicts the weather by calling his mother. In Punxsutawney Phyllis by Susanna Leonard Hill, Phyllis wants to take over when Uncle Phil retires, but no female groundhog has ever gotten to be Phil. She proves herself to be better at predicting the weather than Uncle Phil and her male cousins. In Gretchen Groundhog, It's Your Day! By Abby Levine, Gretchen is scared to go out to face the crowd. It is her first year at the job and she is shy. It is a wonderful story of how she ends up facing her fear with some United States history thrown in. In Gregory's Shadow by Don Freeman, Gregory is best friends with his shadow. He does not want to go out on Groundhog Day without his shadow, but he knows the people do not want him to see his shadow. At one point the two get separated and lost to one another, but eventually they find each other and Gregory figures out a way to go out with his shadow but not see him.

We also had some fun with groundhog crafts. We made the paper ones from a printable at DLTK Kids. Hazel colored hers and I used the colored template. 

I got the idea of using the paper plate from Kiboomu Kid Songs. I tried to do it from memory and did not get the placement of things and coloring quite right, but Hazel loved drawing the sun.

The idea of cutting a shadow of black construction paper came from All Kids Network. They also have a shadow matching game that we haven't tried yet, but looked like it would be fun.

Are you doing anything for Groundhog Day or Candlemas? I know I am hoping for no shadow tomorrow!! I cannot wait for spring weather to get here. It has been too cold this winter!

Sharing Saturday 14-5

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week!! We had some amazing ideas shared. I hope you have had time to go check some out. We had a tie for most clicked.

Lunar New Year and Year of the Horse Book Review

Disclosure: I was sent these books digitally to review free of charge from Immedium. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to each item for your convenience but do not receive anything if you purchase them.

Although we celebrate our New Year on January 1st, there are many places around the world that celebrate the new year at a different time (and some celebrate it at two times January 1st and a cultural traditional time). Friday, January 31st is the lunar new year. Now some cultures that celebrate the lunar new year are the Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Mongolian. The Chinese are the largest group that celebrate it and is the one we hear about most often.

Product Review--GE Reveal Light Bulbs

Disclosure: I was sent these books digitally to review free of charge from GE Reveal. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review.

I was sent a package of four 75 watt GE Reveal light bulbs to review. Now the truth be told, since Steve is an electrical engineer, I tend to leave light bulbs up to him. However, we both agree that we do not like the compact florescent bulbs since they have mercury in them. We don't want to add extra dangerous materials into our home. So my first question about this review was what type of light bulb am I getting. They have a halogen technology inside instead of the florescent bulbs. 

Now that I have my package I needed to decide where to try them. First I tried them in my bedroom. I love to read in bed, but hate having the overhead light on since it shines in my eyes. So I added one to the lamp on my bedside table. Now here it is really important that the light bulb not be the kind that contain mercury. Our dear cat, Fluffy, likes to check out my lamp and often knocks it off the table. We have had some broken light bulbs as a result.

You can see how the light is brighter and cleaner. I am rather excited to try it out tonight with the new novel I took out of the library today.

The other three light bulbs I decided to use in my overhead light in what we call our computer room. This is a room that is an interior room with access to windows being a room away. When I first moved in there was no overhead light in this room, but when we did our updating a few years ago and we had them remove the meringue or plaster of our ceilings (and it really did look like meringue) I had them add an overhead light. I picked one out that I thought was pretty and Steve would like. However, the light has been a nightmare because one or two of the bulbs constantly are burning out almost immediately. However when I added the GE Reveal bulbs a couple of days ago, and they are still going strong (this is a record).

In these pictures you really can see how the light is whiter and more clean. Now I get to really enjoy my light. A total success in my book!

Now you may be wondering where you can purchase these amazing light bulbs. Target has them and they are offering a discount on them with their Cartwheel app. Now I do not have a smart phone or any device to download apps so I could not review it, but it sounds pretty neat. You download it and can scan an item at Target to see if there are any coupons or deals on that item. Here is the information and links to the app as well as a coupon for more savings or for people like me.

Check out Target’s Cartwheel app for 25% off GE reveal® light bulbs. Just search “GE reveal” to find it. Offer expires 2/28.  (Download Cartwheel on your IOS or Android.)

You can also print and use the following coupon for even more savings:

$2 off GE reveal at Target -  Expires 2/8

So where do you need to do a lighting makeover?