The 3 Musketeers..

The walls of our house are a very neutral pale sand/mushroom/chai latte kind of colour, and when they are empty they look EMPTY.

So I made something to put on one of them :-)

Based on this (pinned, of course) tutorial, they're 20x20cm canvases with photographic prints modpodged on. My kids pics didn't really work with the high-contrast treatment in the tutorial though. I chose a green ribbon because since we have those neutral walls (more like the pic below than the photo above) + a heap of timber + charcoaly black furnishings, we decided to use bright blues & greens to brighten the place up a bit, inspired by this palette from Design Seeds!

Lexi was doing her best to be almost ludicrously adorable & endearing in her photo, her little hands clasped together under her chin ever-so-sweetly, until I cropped them off the picture!!

a simple question

after telling the kids a thousand times not to draw on the walls/furniture/clothes/themselves please, lexi replied "what can i draw on that isn't paper?!"

the i remembered that for some mysterious reason, we have some fabric pens!!

so we cut out some cardboard squares, then a little piece of t-shirt fabric slightly bigger-
folded the excess over & sellotaped it down-
then let them loose!
both kids did a couple of 'abstract' pieces, and then lexi did a couple of mini ones too-
and ironed them to set!

quite honestly the pens were pretty horrid, but since they're such a rarity here (the kids have good quality crayons & pencils instead) the kids loved them!

i'm not entirely sure what to do with these little masterpieces, but it was a fun activity for the kids, and any ideas of what to do use them for would be much appreciated!!

the breeders

not us, my friends!

it started with needing to make the 2nd pair of booties for a friend who had just had twin girls-
then another had a gorgeous baby boy-
and paul's sister was having a baby girl, so for the baby shower i made a couple of pocket nappies-
and some bamboo & baby pink hemp inserts-
but then she came *before* the baby shower, 7 weeks early, so i had to whip up something fast!
thus, the tiny pink hat-
see, just for scale, here it is on top of the size small nappies!!
and another friend of mine had once mentioned that with prem babies it can be nice to have a pretty sign of their name for their incubator/bassinet, so lexi did a little watercolour painting and punched & glued some butterflies onto a picture for her-and then yet another friend, a passionate knitter, had a baby boy, so i knit him a fun little woven ball-

now i've just got a tiny bit of down time before i need to make something for four more babies on their way!

minute crafting

minute as in teeny tiny minuscule kind of minute...

still plodding along with jumper sleeves, so that is holding up everything else... except while holding a sick bubba i made something tiny-
didya spot it?!
not the baby (though i did make that), not the jumper, not even the marshmallow...
the watermark!!
lol yeah i made my own watermark... there has been a spate (ok two things that i've seen, a small spate) of commercial enterprises using photos from personal blogs without permission, or even notification, and while i do think that the likelihood of that happening here is pretty much zilch, it's still kinda fun having my own little logo to slap on things to show that they're *mine* - just from a proud perspective rather than a security one ;-)

I used Paint.net (a free paint program) to make it, if you want to make one yourself, you simply-
1- create a new canvas (maybe 500px square),
2- use the eraser over the whole canvas to make it transparent
3- create your design
4- crop your canvas to the right shape, then resize it (mine is 100px square) - Select tool (draw around your design)>Image>Crop to Selection.. then Image>Resize
5- save it!

when you want to use it-
1- open your watermark in Paint.net
2- select & copy your watermark
3- open your photo
4- paste the watermark in a new layer - Edit>Paste into New Layer
5- Make it opaque - Layers>Layer properties>opacity - adjust to where you like it
6- 'glue' them together - Image>Flatten
7- Save!

hee hee...

Lanterns - Take II

thank goodness for the internet, and thank goodness for Gingerbread!

certainly not as pretty as her ones, but, y'know, being winter means autumny coloured leaves don't exactly abound, and i didn't have time to dry them nicely either!
And if you are attempting this activity i recommend using a glue stick rather than PVA, unless you want a decidedly *ahem* rustic look ;-)

i think they'll work though!

go! or not. not at all in fact.

as sharon so rightly guessed, we were making little basketty things made with glue-soaked yarn over a balloon.. like these.. with the intention of then weaving plant matter into the yarn to make a cool lantern for tonight's midwinter lantern festival.

they did look like this-
so anyway, this morning they felt suitably dry & crispy, so i decided to pop one..

yeah you've probably guessed it by now....




















yup.

are you supposed to *grease* the balloon or something?!?!

luckily i didn't pop it in front of alexis, so i'm going to leave the other one to dry for another day or two & see if that helps!

and now to come up with a new awesome lantern idea!!

heh heh heh heh..

"i was a banana!"
(spot the quote ;-p )


we also had a go at "wet on wet" painting today
(ie watercolours on paper that has been soaked for 15min or so..)
painting isn't umm.. exactly my forte, but it was interesting for lexi to see the colours spread & mix :-)

autumn

autumn nature 'table' basket

harvest festival

lexi's window stencil

ok, so valentine's day has become a very americana/capitalist's dream sort of a day, but a day to show a simple expression of affection for family & friends can't be a bad thing.. so when i saw this on the Crafty Crow i decided to make up a little stencil (out of left over duraseal) for lexi to paint :-)

happy birthday dad!

alexis did a big painting specially for your birthday!

the photo doesn't really show the *ahem* depth of colour so well, so you'll just have to collect it next time you're here ;-)

(and yes i know it was yesterday, but someone was hogging the computer.. anyway how could i forget?! it's the day after ozzy osbourne's... ;-) )

rainbow challenge!

how many colours can you find from your recent (and unblogged) projects?

i've got...
pink & orange - another window star

white & yellow - there would be red too, but, well.. the toddler got it first

blue - my new project board! the fabric is left over from our roman blinds

green - our 1m+ tall silverbeet monster, finally bolting! it has an apprentice down on the left though

green & brown - to-be-felted-crown V2 (work in progress), a sylvan theme with the lovely "green tea" wool i received from our yarn swap!

and for a big rainbow-

a train that lexi made from her beeswax block crayons!

a waldorf inspired day..

since we started at our local steiner/waldorf playgroup a couple of months ago we've taken on board quite a bit of their 'rhythm' at home as well :-)

today has been a pretty good example of what we try to do.. not perfect by any means, and not exactly what we do at playgroup, but good nonetheless!

Our day starts with all the usual, mundane stuff - breakfast, getting dressed etc etc...

after breakfast alexis plays while i put the washing on & deal to the dishwasher..

once i'm done then we have our 'circle time' when we sing little action songs starting with the morning song-
morning has come, night is away,
rise with the sun and welcome the day,
good morning dear earth, good morning dear sun,
good morning dear stones and flowers, every one,
good morning dear bees, and birds in the trees,
good morning to you, and good morning to me..
and a bunch of others-
Galoomp goes the little green frog
Wind the bobbin up
Head, shoulders, knees & toes
Little birdy
Open, shut them
Little turtle
The beehive
The river
Where is thumbkin?
and Twinkle, twinkle little star, with a verse that i had never heard before-
(to the tune of the "up above the world so high" section)
stars in apples, seed pods, pears,
stars in flowers everywhere,
twinkle, twinkle etc etc..?!

at playgroup after circle time the kids knead bread dough & roll it into buns, which alexis reminded me today, but since i didn't have dough prepared we measured the ingredients together into the breadmaker instead ;-) and the breadmaker took care of making ours buns while we had lunch..

once the dough was ready we washed our hands -singing "this is the way we wash our hands, wash our hands, wash our hands, *repeat*, ready for making buns"- and kneaded our dough & made it into buns, while singing-
"this is the way we knead/poke/pat/roll/shape the dough" etc etc ;-) then left the buns in the sun to rise..
meanwhile we drew some pictures
with our beloved beeswax crayons!
then the buns were ready to go in the oven... then come out again..
time for afternoon tea!hot buns with strawberry jam...

time for more play for alexis (and a wee rest for me)

and then to finish off the afternoon we have a story.. but first we sing-
mother of the fairy tale, take us to your shining vale,
with mountains high, and valleys deep,
where fairies fly, and goblins creep,
now let us hear your fairy tale..
followed by-
thank you for your fairy tale
ka ki te, ka ki te, ka ki te ano
(gosh i hope i've spelt that right!)

not too crazy sounding huh? well i don't think so anyway! ;-) and of course regularly interspersed with changing, feeding & cuddling the bubba!

oh yeah, in an ideal day the kids would spend a good amount of time outside, amongst nature.. but the recent horrific weather has left our back garden pretty unsuitable for play, and we all have coughs, so an inside day it was for us!

Anxiously awaiting spring..

alexis and i made butterflies!

they really couldn't be simpler... just take a tuft or two of each colour of wool roving, lay them side by side, then join them in the middle with a tiny hair-tie (or rubber band or string.. we happened to have some hair-ties, and they're colourful), then fluff out the middle of each 'wing' and give the end a twist!

then we hung them in the window, with a length of thread tied to the middle, for a touch of spring cheeriness :-)

scrapbooking with alexis!

a challenge was issued to keep the computer off and do something with the kids this morning, specifically, make a book with/for them..

so i decided to have a go at scrapbooking with alexis! :-D
eek..
for one thing, i'm terribly inexperienced at it..
secondly, i don't have all the bits that scrapbookers usually have, i just have a few stamps & ink pads, and a few papers..
thirdly, trying to create something serious using glue & ink & photos etc with a toddler?! what was i thinking?!

actually it turned out pretty well! we're both pretty proud of our finished products...

alexis' effort- and mine-(first one i've been happy with!)

meanwhile eli was busy learning how to bat stuff with his hands :-)so a pretty productive & fun morning!

please excuse the nasty reflective photos..

alexis' art!

inspired by the new Steiner playgroup that we go to, alexis has taken a new interest in doing arty stuff! :-)

We've been doing quite a bit of painting recently, and when i saw some little canvases on special i thought it would be fun to let her loose on them!

this is the first completed one of the three, i really like it, especially how she has added the dots of pink over the 'arms' of blue.. the other two are still WIPs, but will hopefully add pics of them soon too..

and this is one her many drawings, this one was done at playgroup, using their beautiful beeswax block crayons (they are SO nice to use! ), can you guess what she has drawn in the top left corner?

it's a face! two swirly eyes, a little dot nose and a line for a mouth.. she was naming them as she drew them, so it's not just proud-delusional-mother-syndrome ;-)
(yes, i drew the blue apple in the bottom corner, by request..)

and thanks to this idea by Kleas i thought it would be fun to give her a go at felting!
this is her wee effort-
cute huh? and the zip-lock bag idea works nicely, and keeps all the mess contained!

unlike my effort, which was done sans ziplock bag, and resulted in a pile of soaking wet towels! we were using autumn colours for the first of our four pieces for our (not yet established) seasonal nature table :-)

huge thanks to mrs Designer Bums for teaching me how to wet felt, with copious amounts of help from the lovely J13 & K9!

Finished house!

Tee hee hee! pretty tidy huh? and on time too! :-D

Furnished with my old dolls house stuff & some sylvanian families furniture too..

and with pride of place in the kids room - my carefully salvaged precious Disneyland mini-poster!

compared with the before pics-

I'm pretty happy with it! :-D