Fun filled crazy day...

My job this week is to try to keep Hazel entertained and quiet during the mornings and early afternoon so Steve can sleep since he is working the overnight shift to help restore power to the people of Massachusetts (and Rhode Island and maybe New York). Last night or this morning I should say Hazel woke me up at 1 a.m. wanting to sleep in my bed and have some milk. Steve woke us up at 2 a.m. coming in. He somehow finished all his work for the night early and was allowed to come home. So this morning after breakfast and play time, Hazel and I took a walk and then ran errands though Steve was up after our walk. Oh, and we went to our local library for story time. After story time we went to the very small weekly Farmer's Market. This summer Hazel discovered corn-on-the-cob and loves it, so we bought some. We also got some peaches (I hope they are better than the ones I have been getting at the grocery stores because I have not been impressed this year with them), apples, cucumbers, kale, honey, and an apple pie for Steve and apple cider donuts. For the most part donuts do not excite me anymore. I think they are ok, but not worth the calories, however I love apple cider donuts. I think this fall I may look into making some. I just googled some recipes to try. I remember making homemade donuts when I was a child as a fun activity, so hopefully we can start a fall tradition.

On our walk this morning Hazel and I collected acorns. Hurricane Irene seems to have forced many down a bit early. Some are on her nature table along with some leaves we collected yesterday on our short walk (and pinecones, shells, rocks, etc.) The rest I'm hoping to use in some fun crafts. So far I have come up with acorn fairies, acorn people, acorn pumpkins, acorn wreath (though this looks like it would be for older kids), and of course just gluing along with fall leaves and pine cones to make a wreath or napkin rings. Do you have any good ideas for acorn crafts?

One of the errands today was a trip to Michaels. I bought some wooden frames and Mod Podge. I bought some small squares of tissue paper awhile ago. I'm going to have Hazel Mod Podge the tissue paper onto the frames and then seal it with another coat. I'm thinking this may be some Christmas presents. We'll see how they turn out.

I'm also looking for some good ways to make clothespin dolls. I found in my supplies a package of different race colored clothespins. Hazel is wanting to use them for fairies or something, so I think I may be doing some of that soon as well. I think the next fairy I want to try though is with wool roving. I bought some more wood beads for the heads.

Well that is where my mind is. Have a great night!

Halloween Children's Book and Needle Felted Characters

21 Days left until Halloween

Last night I made Hazel four characters from Erica Silverman's book, Big Pumpkin. When we had this book out of the library we read it at least three times a day. It is a Halloween story with a witch, ghost, vampire, bat and mummy, but is not scary at all. The overall story is the witch plants a pumpkin seed so she can make pumpkin pie for Halloween. Her pumpkin grows and grows, and when she goes to pick it hours away from Halloween it is too big for her to pick. Each of the other characters come along and try and only the little bat comes up with the idea that works (working together). Then they all enjoy her pumpkin pie at her Halloween party.

I told Hazel that the Pumpkin Fairy must have left them. I'm not sure if she believes me or not, but she has been a bit afraid of fairies due to the toy fairy story, so I want her to see some good in fairies as well. To make the ghost, I started with a small bit of white roving and folded it up small. Then I needled it into a ball. Next I took pieces of roving and draped them over the ball. I needled them into the ball and shaped the ghost how I wanted it. I tried to turn the ends out so it could stand on its own. Then I took small pieces of black to be eyes and a mouth.

For the witch, I made a ball out of biege roving and then shaped a piece of it for her nose. I added green hair--needling it on. For the hat I spiraled the black for the bottom and made it as flat as I could then I used a styrafoam cone to help get the shape of the top, but in the end it was too big so I folded it over and needled it flatter until I was happy. Then I attached the two pieces and attached the hat to the head (with the needle of course). Then I made arms by folder a long piece of black over and needling it into the shape I wanted. Then I used the cone to help with the body. Attaching long pieces at the top and draping it over the cone. I attached the arms to the head and the body to the arms. Once all attached I made adjustments until I was happy. Again I tried to stiffen the bottom outward to make her stand. She is a bit tall to stand on the roving, but can a bit.

I did the bat in a similar fashion making a small ball out of black and the wings were similar to the arms but flatter.

For the vampire, I used white for the face. Then I used black and red for the eyes and mouth. I tried to add fangs, but they blended in with his face a bit. Then I did the arms and body similar to how I did the witch.

I haven't figured out a way to do the mummy yet, which is why she didn't get one. Still thinking about it.

Today I'm hoping to plant some fall bulbs and the lavender plant I bought at the farmer's market this weekend. I'm hoping to get Hazel out digging in the dirt with me. She hasn't been as afraid to get dirty as she use to be. Have a great day!!

How to Ride a Dragonfly -- with Dragonfly Fun Facts & Craft Round-Up

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. 

Summer has begun! Today I am sharing a fun, fantasy picture book that is perfect for some summer fun. It is How to Ride a Dragonfly by Kitty Donohoe and illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf. It is recommended for ages 4 to 8. I am also including fun facts about dragonflies and a craft round-up. 

How to ride out a hurricane...

Well Hurricane Irene came and went. We spent the day home trying to keep busy. The only time the tv was on was to check the weather and when Hazel was sleeping.

And the dish ran away with the spoon

One of our first activities was to make Hey, diddle diddle mobiles. We got the print out from Free Kid Crafts. You need to print out 2 for each mobile, but one needs to be the mirror image. I did this by saving it as an image and putting it into Word and flipping the picture with the rotate tool. Then we colored and cut out. We added in the arms and legs to the dish and spoon and gave them extra long strings to run away on.

The little dog laughed to see such sport

The cat and the fiddle...the Cow jumped over the moon

Next we danced. Hazel finally wore her Beatrix Potter twirly skirt (and wore it today to nonni's house).

Where the pattens came from

And during nap time I finished a new outfit for her. I made the pants Saturday night. And finished the top yesterday. Unfortunately we had a potty training accident before we went out today in it. These patterns came from Little Girls, Big Style by Mary Abreu. Very cute clothes to make for girls sizes 2-6. Definitely recommend this book if you like these styles.

Our final craft of the day was to make flower fairies. We got the instructions from Family Fun. Hazel loved doing this though she needed a lot of help. We made three each and she took them with her today to show Nonni. I'm thinking she can use them in her fairy garden to play. Plus it used up some of the extra supplies we had from the fairy garden.

Flower Fairies

Now the hard part of the hurricane (or any storm) is on me. I have to entertain Hazel and keep her quiet while her poor father sleeps since he worked overnight. The one draw back of working for the power company is when the storms hit he is called in. Oh, well. Today she is with Nonni (his mother) and tomorrow I'll make some playdates or something. The weather is beautiful now, so I'm off for a walk. Enjoy!

Fall Crafts Capturing the Beauty of Autumn Leaves

 

Last week I shared some autumn crafts including leaf embroidery. I promised another fall craft if it worked and it mostly did. So today I am sharing how to make a leaf bowl. Now I saw photographs all over the place like this one for inspiration. I went outside and picked some beautiful fall leaves. Then I wiped them and let them dry for a few hours. I gathered a plastic cup, a balloon, a paintbrush, and my ModPodge. When I was ready I blew up the balloon and put it in the plastic cup. The cup works as a stand so you do not have to hold the balloon in place. Put the knotted side down into the cup. Then I spread some ModPodge on my first leaf and stuck it on to the balloon. I then spread more ModPodge on the other side of the leaf to get it really stuck. I continued doing this trying to overlap the leaves.

St. Patrick's Day Cards and More Spring Fairies

Our First Spring Bulb Has a Flower!

Today we decided it was time to make the St. Patrick's Day cards to mail to our family. I am part Irish--Hazel is named after my Irish grandmother and her godmother is Irish, so we will do a small celebration for it.  I bought her a shamrock plant at Trader Joe's the other day. We took some of the shamrocks off to paint with them.

The prints did not come out exactly as I had planned, but we tried.

Then we decorated with stickers and we stamped the insides with a Happy St. Patrick's Day stamp.

Hazel wanted to do a rainbow on one, so I gave her some heart stickers for it.

And the insides:

Yesterday at school the teacher had a beautiful bendy doll fairy that was much smaller than what I have made, so I tried some. If you don't know what a bendy doll is there are several tutorials around. They are made of pipe cleaners wrapped with embroidery floss and usually a wooden bead for a head and more embroidery floss or yarn for hair. The tutorial I first used is at The Enchanted Tree. I still need to add some wings to my fairies, but thought I would share them anyway.

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Spring and Easter Crafts

This week we have been busy making Easter egg crafts and some spring crafts. We got a few ideas from Family Fun. The first is a paper mache egg diorama made to look like the sugar ones. I bought some water bomb balloons so they would be more egg shaped than the round ones. We used their recipe for paste and did our best to get three layers one. Hazel had a few issues but it was not too bad. The hardest thing was finding things to go inside the eggs.

This is messy, so make sure you put the newspaper down! They also can drip while drying, so leave it there for the first bit. The nice part of the flour water paste is that it cleans up fairly easily. This is a simple paper mache of dipping the tissue paper into the homemade paste and smoothing it onto a balloon. Some are smoother than others, but when making with a three-year-old we are not looking for perfection.

After they have completely dried you pop the balloon and cut a hole. Then you fill it with some Easter grass and a figurine. You can also decorate the outside around the hole, but you have to make more paste for this. Then glue a bow on top and glue a jar lid to the bottom to get it to stand.

The next craft we also got from Family Fun. We got to use our water balloons and I made the homemade paste again instead of the glue mixture and we invaded my yarn supply.

Hazel had more difficulty with these. She did not quite get the idea of wrapping the yarn. She wanted to apply it in bunches which did not stick and she also got a lot of the paste on it so it showed (this is the one downfall of using the paste and not the glue mixture). She decided to make all red ones because Chrysanthemum (formerly Ducky) wanted them red. She also experimented with putting the balloon in the paste instead of the glue. It didn't work but she kept trying.

The general idea of these are to dip the yarn in the paste/glue and wrap around the balloons. You let them dry and then pop the balloons and have a beautiful yarn egg.

I decided to use the ones we made to decorate the dining room. I hung them from the chandelier (which is high enough so the cats can't play with them).

I also made Hazel some flower fairies. I found this package of flower bath petals or something like that in the clearance section at Michaels for 45 cents.

Having recently seen Marie's of Softearth World post on Thumbellina, I bought them with that in mind. So I pulled out some peg dolls and made them into fairies to match the blue flowers.

Hazel also painted some wooden butterflies that I bought at the Dollar Tree. I then glued one ribbons for her to hang them on her tree.

We have been a little behind on switching her tree to spring so these will help.

Ok, that catches you up on all of our crafting this week. What have you been up to? I hope you will come back and share at Sharing Saturday! And if you have any family time related posts please come share at Happy Family Times each Tuesday.

This is where I link up...

Fairy Tales in Different Cultures & Fairy Tale Baking!

Disclosure: I was sent these products free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As always I am providing links to the book for your convenience.

Now I have been planning on reviewing these two amazing books from Crocodile Books USA. I had planned to write this review on Monday, but this week has gotten away from me, so here I am writing it on Wednesday. I am planning however on bringing back Fairy Tales in Different Cultures back in the new year, so stay tuned!! Our first book for today is The Crystal Mountain retold and illustrated by Ruth Sanderson. 

Non-Scary Halloween Part 1 -- Peanuts Party, Teal Pumpkin & More

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

It is October and this is Hazel's least favorite month. Many of the Halloween decorations and costumes scare her. In fact there are only a few stores she will go into with me this time of year. Yes, just seeing the Halloween displays can give her nightmares. But she does love to dress-up and loves to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood, so I always try to find a friendly way to celebrate Halloween. Last year we did a Christian Halloween party. This year Hazel discovered Snoopy and the Peanuts gang so thanks to Oriental Trading we are hosting a Peanuts themed Halloween party. 

Fairy Houses, Fairy Gardens & More

Last weekend our next door neighbor (a 10-year-old) came over to play with Hazel. They decided to build a house. They started with a fairy house. They started by gathering materials--sticks, rocks, pine cones and leaves (though I had to stop them from pulling up all the lily of the valley leaves--oops!). I also brought out our collection of treasures from our nature walks. I think they did a nice job.

Hazel has been getting into fairy houses a bit more since we discovered the book Fairy Houses by Tracy L. Kane. It is a wonderful book about a girl whose family takes her to an island off the coast of Maine and in the woods there is a place where people build fairy houses following the rules of the woods which are posted. At the end of the book, there are ideas for building fairy houses in all four seasons.

On our walk through the woods at Mass Audubon, we looked for fairy houses or at least good places for one. We liked this one below. A fallen tree with another tree winding around it. It looked magical to me.

Last year I saw at The Magic Onions her fairy garden contest. Hazel and I entered it. Here is my entry. Here is Hazel's entry. Then Hazel wanted to put the three little pigs in it and build their houses, so here is that one. Donni at The Magic Onion is having the contest again this year. Now I'm really going to work on getting Hazel into it. We shall see what we can come up with this year. I always like to get Hazel thinking about such magical things.

My plan this year is to take Hazel to pick out plants/flowers for it and find a good container to put it in. Then we can add the rocks and furniture, etc. We shall see where Hazel's imagination takes us this year.

How about you? Will you entertain some fairies this year?

My Adventures in Needle Felting

One of Hazel's favorite books

So last spring I became fascinated with needle felting. I looked at the books and saw such interesting things you could make with them and really fell in love. I first found a little kit to make a fish. It seemed easy enough. I changed some of the colors so it would look more like the Rainbow Fish (from the book by Marcus Pfister which we highly recommend). I'm going to eventually make Hazel a magnet fishing game and make this fish as one of the catches. I also bought some silver sequins to make it more like the Rainbow Fish.I haven't added them yet or done the mouth.

My Rainbow Fish

Next I found Wool Pets by Laurie Sharp at the library. I tried a few animals from there without much luck. I showed my mother my attempts and we agreed I did not needle them enough.

Next I found this great book full of inspiration and know-how. I wanted to try to make everything. I attempted a bird, but again did not needle it enough. Then I put it all away for a few months.

The other day I pulled out my supplies. Actually I pulled out the roving to make the fairies and while it was out I decided to try some needle felting again. I started small. I made a flower (with a mold) to attach to the dish. I liked it and made some to go all the way around. Then I did a little heart for the spoon. I was very happy with the results.

The Dish

The Loving Spoon

After these successes, I decided to try a few from my book. I had fallen in love with the tea cup so I decided to be daring and try it. I liked the results though I did not have enough of the blue roving to make another cup and saucer.

Then I had seen on line at The Magic Onions a tutorial to needle felt a pumpkin. I did not have much orange roving, so I decided to hold off on trying this. However, I decided to try an apple on my own. I figured I had plenty of red and different shades of green to give it a try. I followed the directions in the book on how to make a sphere and expanded it into the apple shape. Then played with colors to get different shading and added a stem and leaves and even put a little dark brown on the bottom for the core/flower piece. I was very happy with it.

So I think I have overcome my fear of needle felting and am looking forward to trying more with it. First I need to get some more supplies. Enjoy your weekend!

My Apple Creation