handmade holidays wrap up, part I

i showed you the beginning of this flying snake a while ago. here he is finished. this pattern challenged me as a novice knitter, but i enjoyed feeling as though i conquered it (relatively speaking here). my circular knitting certainly has much room for improvement, but being that this was my first project on dpns, i think i did alright. the long body of the snake is hollow and his round head is stuffed with beans.
jasper loves him!! he has provided us with several opportunities to talk about appropriate play, too. ;) a favorite thing to do with him is to slide him across the linoleum floor. in the springtime, he will enjoy much wilder play outdoors, i am sure of it!

the other project i shared at that time was the princess in the forest outfit. well, i started with the felted slippers. i knit them larger than the pattern called for and yet when i felted them, they shrunk to jasper's size! a long ways from fitting sienna.

at that point, i knew i was not going to stress myself about trying to get this project done by solstice. i went ahead and ordered another skein of yarn and the second set of slippers are currently on the needles. it's at times like these that i am thankful that her birthday is just six weeks after christmas!
sienna made such thoughtful and beautiful gifts for jasper. i wanted to give jasper the opportunity to gift something just as meaningful that he helped create for her. i found this wooden box at the craft store. i used my wood burner to embellish it a little and then handed it over to him. he chose pink and blue (and therefore purple) watercolors as they are her favorite colors. then we rubbed it with beeswax polish. i just love how it turned out!! it is a treasure box. a proper place to put those special tokens that she previously had no home for. i lined the inside of the box with a piece of felted sweater.

i also purchased two wooden blanks that matt painted with chalkboard paint so that each child now has their own chalkboard.wishing you all many blessings and good fortune in the new year!!

tomorrow i will show the gifts that dad made. he really outdid himself!

dreamy white christmas

christmas eve we went up to the blue ridge parkway for a little excursion. it was a gorgeous, sunny day and relatively warm. the ice was melting and the water was running behind the sheets of ice still clinging to the rock faces. fascinating to watch....and taste! it was a bit nippy, but there was no sign of what was to come.
christmas morning we awoke to our first big snow of the year!! it continued to snow until monday morning. long ago, i lived in these mountains during the latter years of my childhood. snow of this volume was just unheard of at that time. we once had a blizzard and that was a freak occurrence. otherwise, the little snow we did get, just melted right back away. from the look of things last winter and the start of this one, times are once again changing.
so delightful to spend christmas snowed in with the family. we were due to travel to poppa's house for christmas dinner but plans were canceled when the snow arrived.
we played games, drew lots of pictures, listened to christmas music, did some baking, some cleaning and rearranging, and played in the powdery goodness outside our door. upon our return, we indulged in hot chocolate and my new favorite delight, peppermint whipped cream. mmmmm!!! the mini trampoline grandma sent for christmas came in very handy for working off that chocolate rush. ;)
matt has been working a lot and has rarely even taken two days off in a row for months now. to have him home for three days in a row and snowed in for two of them was a real treat indeed!
sienna was born in colorado but sadly does not remember it. i am always thrilled when she gets to experience plentiful snow like this.
their blissful joy is such a thrill to experience!
here's hoping you are loving your weather wherever you are!

for the love of beeswax (and renee)

inspired by my very talented friend tracy hildebrand, i set out to make some beeswax ornaments last night. being the middle of winter, tracy had no pressed botanicals handy when she went to make her beeswax lanterns. she improvised with tiny cutters and decorating wax and came up with a sweet star and moon motif. i loved the idea and had been wanting to make this smaller version of the lanterns to have some to hang on the tree.
after the kids were in bed and the beeswax was melted matt and i set about dipping our wee water balloons. he has been busy this season both working long hours and doing quite a bit of making himself (more on that to come!) so this is the first time he has gotten in on the holiday crafting with me this year.
i love his completed ornament! he chose to hang his as a bell rather than a bowl.
it glows bee-utifully when strategically placed near a christmas bulb and releases its soothing aroma (thanks to tracy's daughter, emily, for the tip!).
it's one of my favorites, to be sure. it was difficult to get the balloons to be anywhere near symmetrical when filling them with water. because we were only filling them a little ways, they had a tendency to be lopsided and terribly off center.
finally i had a great shape and was so tickled with the way the above ornament turned out! i am blessed to be in a very special ornament swap (more on that to come, too) and knew this would be just perfect for my partner.

then today i needed that outdoor photo. as i headed out with the two ornaments above and my camera, the ever present multi-tasking monkey on my back took over and steered me toward the mailbox. well, it's christmas eve eve and there are cards and wee packages in the mailbox. as i go to retrieve the first parcel, i dropped my precious ornament, cracking it nearly in half! :( lesson learned. i spent the next hour or so with my hair dryer trying to repair my error. i have patched it well enough to grace my own tree, but not to gift to another.

the beeswax is hot and the intoxicating scent is filling the air and i am ready to go give it another go! i will post pics of the final ornament after it is sent. this one came out much too large to hang on the tree. it sat upright on the counter until inspiration hit and i went to scavenge an led tealight.
this little beauty is now by sienna's bedside. tonight she said she wished she had an extra large one to light the night for her. ;)jasper is obsessed with the beeswax. well, we all are, to be fair. he likes the chunks that haven't been used or the scraps and leftover bits and he also likes to carry around the mold ornaments and make little beds for them. he holds them to his nose and inhales, he rubs his cheeks with them, and breaks the scraps into tiny bits.

his other new habit is sticking his arm down my shirt and fondling my *nurnies* (somehow that word evolved from *nursing*). *they are so warm!*, he will say in his cutest little voice. when these two beeswax forms above were deemed rejects i thought of jasper right away. i tried to pass them off as his beeswax nurnies as a replacement for the need to stick half of his upper body in my sweater. though that didn't work entirely, he did enjoy playing with them today (because they are nifty beeswax cups, not because they are portable breasts!). ;)one last photo for you. since solstice, the beeswax has been flowing around here. we have made a couple of lanterns, poured ornaments into molds, poured our own beeswax tea lights, and made these candles above. also inspired by tracy h and a project she did with her daughter's 2nd grade class, we rolled sheets of beeswax, then dipped them to make them more solid and to burn longer. then we decorated with modeling wax. so fun! the scent of warm beeswax is now interwoven into our holiday traditions for evermore.

here's hoping you have a wonderful christmas weekend with your loved ones! i appreciate each one of you and the beauty you share in this space. with love and appreciation, rae

p.s. happy birthday, renee!!! we love you! xoxoxo

the shortest day

sometimes when you are absent from blogland it can be tough to jump back in. what started with a technical difficulty (note to self: surge protectors only protect through so many surges!) grew into extended silence in this space. i thought i might do a jumble post to *catch up* so to speak. however, i decided instead to take this special day to log back in and wish you a wonderful solstice!
we were so looking forward to the lunar eclipse last night. everyone was prepared to arise in the middle of the night to get a glimpse of the magic in the heavens. mother nature had other plans though and by the middle of the night our skies were too cloudy to view the moon. the overcast mood persists today so our sun prints will have to wait until the sun visits us once again.
so we are nestled inside awaiting the longest night of the year. yesterday we dried and strung orange slices to hang on our tree in honor of the sun. we have done this for several years but this year we added cinnamon sticks to our ornaments after being inspired by linda. i love that they represent warmth as well as add another delicious scent to our home.
this afternoon, we will leave our lights off and allow the darkness to slowly overtake us. we will light candles as needed rather than flipping a switch as usual. we will enjoy a candlelight meal together, another sun pavlova (with secret holiday topping!), and then have our family gift exchange.
the new header photo deserves a little mention. on the left is sienna's st lucia crown she made at school. next is a beeswax candle that jasper rolled in class nestled in a moss garden adorned with crystals that ms jessica made for each child to take home with them over the holidays. we light our candles nightly and think of our classmates as a way to stay connected over the long break. that stunningly beautiful glowing orb is a beeswax lantern made by one of my students, bryce. i just love that he made it for me and feel the love that he put into it. his mom has become quite the beeswax lantern pro and i will be back soon with a little update to my tutorial full of her words of wisdom.

wishing you a warm and light filled night,
rae

handmade holidays: children's edition, part II

more goodies from the children. we planted paper whites a couple of weeks ago. we used various christmas glassware that i had collected from thrift stores. lone glasses that had once belonged to a set but had since been cast away. all were priced between 25 and 50 cents a piece. we planted them in pea pebbles. i purchased a very large bag of it at the hardware store for $4.
we did not start them early enough for them to be blooming when we gift them. however, this way the recipient will get to enjoy a bit of the anticipation of the bloom as well. the children love to monitor the growth and changes of these stalks and their roots daily.
this year i will try the alcohol trick that i picked up from liv at 54 stitches. last year, ours were so tall they kept toppling over. it will be interesting to see if the alcohol really prevents that from happening. another sneak peek. another of sienna's canvases for another grandparent. this one was with watercolor pencils. jasper has been busy painting canvas, too. ;)
and the best for last. sienna made these balls for jasper. they look like they are still balls of loose yarn in the photo, but they are actually quite firmly felted together. she started with the littlest scraps of my wool yarns that i had been collecting. she balled those up firmly and then wrapped some longer lengths around it to secure it. we felted these in the washing machine.
the pastel one is a gorgeous handspun from dear jen at syrendell. sienna had been coveting that yarn for some time and was thrilled that i let her use it for this project!

i love how these turned out. jasper is somewhat ball crazy so they will be just perfect for him. we are planning to make some more for another little friend, too.

this weekend we are working on wrapping up a few of the unfinished projects still hanging about. dad brought home a tree tonight so we will hopefully decorate that soon. i have been completely occupied with preparations for tomorrow's advent spiral. now it looks like it may get snowed out!!! that would break my heart more than a little bit and it may be the only way our tree gets decorated tomorrow!

handmade holidays: children's edition

the children have been hard at work on christmas preparations here. sienna has always been my little crafty sidekick. at her age now, she is really diving into making gifts for everyone this year. it is so endearing to watch her work. we are enjoying some snow days at home and are in christmas crafting overdrive! here is some of what they have been working on.
we made festive felted acorn ornaments. we started by painting the caps with glitter. we did have some glitter paint about, but we also used craft glitter. my favorite new trick is to mix the glitter into glue (we used our new clementine natural glue) and paint it on. practically mess free glitter fun!
one of the very best tools we have at school or home is this hand drill. i highly recommend it for your children and you! children absolutely love turning the handle and i have used it several times for projects of my own. one of the ways we use it is to make holes in our acorn caps for stringing.here are some of our completed ornaments. we used red and white baker's twine to string them. the children did almost all of this project on their own. they painted the caps, drilled the holes, wet felted the balls, and sienna tied knots in the twine. i threaded the twine through the hole in the cap. i also operated the glue gun and as they fit the ball with the *right* cap, i glued them in.
this is my favorite one. i found these giant caps (still not sure what tree they are from. do you know?) and squealed with delight! they are a bit crumbly but i still love the way they look. our felted balls have some sparkly nylon fibers mixed in but the sparkles don't show well on camera.
sienna has been hard at work on several presents for her brother. this is a puzzle blank from *bare books*. she drew an enchanted family with an elf father and little brother and a fairy mother and big sister.
she used her watercolor pencils. she likes to dip them in water and then draw with them. it pilled the paper a bit but i can see why she enjoys using them that way. she then has the control of a pencil, but the color flows from the tip like paint. it was a pretty captivating color experience!
here is a sneak peek of another completed project of hers. this one she made for a grandparent who might read this blog. she painted on canvas and then used her stitches to accentuate the outline. i was fascinated by this project and wanted to give stitching on canvas a try. i loved the way it turned out but she seems to be content having done it just once. ;) i may experiment with this method myself in the future.

being that we have now had two days home for snow, they have completed a few more projects, including our christmas cards. i will do a follow post soon. what are your children making?

our first st nicholas day

this year we have added st. nicholas day to our festivities. we have been reading christine natale's sweet stories since december 1st. they are short stories meant to be told each night ending on st nicholas day. the children have enjoyed learning about this saint and his kind and generous deeds.

i have also enjoyed learning about st nicholas and his many different companions (some of them quite scary) as well as the various ways he is celebrated around the world. in christine's story, his companion is knecht rupert, which happens to be the name of the etsy shop where i ordered jasper's new solstice doll!

one of the things i love most about blogging is getting glimpses into how other families celebrate festivals through the year. my partner for the *seasonal handmade exchange* is kaya. through her blog, kriebevel, i was able to experience the festivities that take place for st nicholas day in her home of holland. it looks like so much fun!

after seeing the gorgeous wooden shoes of some of my dear blogging friends in past years, i wanted some of our own for this special day. it is not necessary of course, as many children polish their own shoes and leave them out in hopes that st nicholas will leave a treat. however, being that i am in love with all things wood, when i spotted three pairs at my favorite antique store this past summer, i knew i should pick up a pair right away, but instead waited.....until the very last day before st nicholas day! we lucked out and there was still a pair there waiting for us.

this sweet little fairy and hedgehog crafted by erin of *tiny twist creative*. great timing, erin! ;)

the children were delighted to set their shoes out with a carrot and an apple for st nicholas' donkey. when they awoke, their shoes were filled with golden chocolate coins, a wooden toy, and a beautiful book!
i love how this simple piece that we added to our holidays gave us an opportunity to recenter our thoughts around giving and doing for others in this busy season. we have packed up a box of the children's toys that they are ready to part with and will be taking them to a local women and children's center. this is something we do annually but it is so wonderful to have the story of st nicholas to illustrate our intentions so nicely.

this website is full of all things st nicholas if you wish to learn more.

leaf banner

i thought i would finally share a few picks of the banner i made from my leaf poundings before it gets tucked away for the season. i strung buckeyes in between the pennants. i do love how the prints turned out but pounding them was a lot of work!

i have since seen this and been inspired. she tapes the leaf down with packing tape and then rubs it with a pencil to transfer the image. so much easier! i will give this method a try next autumn.

hope you are enjoying a stellar weekend!