I’ve been having fun making videos again.
Here is one so many of you have asked me to make… felt flowers in less than a minute!
This should show you just how easy and quick these flowers are to make. All you need is felt, scissors and a hot glue gun.
There are so many gorgeous things you can make using these flowers. Here, I show you how to make a bouquet of flowers for your mantle.
If you prefer a photo tutorial, I’ve shared the same craft here.
Happy crafting,
Blessings and magic,
Donni
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There are so many beautiful ways to craft with felt.
Felt brings such an earthy rich texture into your home. I recommend crafting with the the best quality felt, always. There is such a huge difference with using the best felt. You are spending time and effort in your crafting and using the best possible materials will make your crafting experience that much more enjoyable. Plus, the results of your crafting efforts will be all the more beautiful when you use better mateirals.
I get my felt from the most delightful shop called A Child’s Dream. They have a huge selection of the prettiest colors. Choose the naturally dyed wool felt if you want to use extra special felt in your projects. It’s simply gorgeous to work with.
Kitty and I have just made such lovely felt blossoms that we glued onto a few twigs and have put in a vase on the mantel.
Best of all, you won’t believe how simple these felt flowers are to make and I’m sharing the quick and easy tutorials with you today.
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I love the soft and gentle colors that Kitty chose with the brighter POP colors of the mustard and the bright pink. I would never have grouped these colors together but they are utterly perfect and I’m glad I trusted her intuition.
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Here’s an image for you to Pin to Pinterest if you are wanting to save this tutorial for later.
Here are some other ways I’ve crafted with felt flowers : Felt Flower Hair Barrettes and Felt Flower Ornaments.
Happy crafting,
Blessings and magic,
Donni
One of our favorite places in all of Maine was a place called Mackworth Island. It is a little island off the coast of Maine, connected to the mainland by a small bridge… if you didn’t know it was there, you’d quite miss it.
The island is covered in thousands of the most majestic trees AND, can you believe it, fairy houses! It’s utterly enchanting. Everyone who visits the island, collects nature goodies on their walk to make the fairies a house and the result is an island packed with the most delightful little scenes.
Of course we made a house too… or rather, Teddy did. He was quite enthralled to the extreme and wanted to build the fairies the best house in all the land. We think he succeeded. Don’t you?
So, if you are in the Falmouth area, be sure to take some time to visit this magical island.
Here are some more photos of Teddy building his fairy house…
And here are some other enchanting fairy houses we found along the way…
Kitty didn’t make a fairy house :: she drew a fairy house instead…
But Dad couldn’t resist making a house of his own…
What magical places one can find!
Blessings and magic,
Donni
Kitty has big plans for a room re-decoration. She wants to ‘cowboy’ it up… she’s into horses and cowboy boots. What a fun theme for an 11-year old’s room, don’t you think?
So, we are thinking of cool little additions to go with cowboys and horses… and still be girly and fun.
A dream catcher, of course!
We made a gorgeous lacy dream catcher with wooden beads, ribbons and white feathers.
Materials :
a crocheted lace doily (from a craft store)
a wooden embroidery hoop, 12 inches in diameter (from a craft store)
white goose feathers (from a craft store)
wood beads (from a craft store)
ribbon and cotton string (from a craft store)
a hot glue gun
We used our hot glue gun to attach the lace doily to the embroidery hoop, sticking the fabric all around the inside of the hoop.
We tied long strands of ribbon and cotton string to the bottom third of the hoop.
We used our hot glue gun to stick the quill of the feathers to the cotton string strands.
We threaded the wooden beads onto the remaining ribbons and cotton strands, letting them hang at varying, random lengths.
Voila… didn’t we make a wonderfully magical dream catcher?
And then we looked up the significance of dream catchers. They are a lovely tradition from Native American dream lore. They are intended to protect a sleeping person from negative dreams, while letting positive dreams slip through the holes of the dream catcher and glide down the feathers to the sleeping person below. The negative dreams get caught up in the web and expire when the first rays of the sun strike them. Isn’t that lovely!
We also made a colorful rainbow dream catcher for Teddy’s room a few years ago. You can follow our DIY tutorial here. It is a little different.
Sleep well, beautiful dreamers.
Blessings and magic,
Donni
There is something supremely satisfying for our children when they are able to make a tangible creation with their own two hands. It’s one of the things I love most about Waldorf education, this sense that kids can make whatever they want. I’ve seen the gift unfold often over the years. I have watched as they have toiled over handwork, woodwork, art. It’s not easy at first. But it’s wonderful to see that, with perseverance and encouragement, their little hands become more skilled and they grow in the confidence in their own ability. I’ve watched handwork turn into a love and a passion that I know they will both carry into adulthood. Lucky them!
Teddy knitted a cat the other day, all on his own. He thought he was the cleverest boy in the whole world. Just look at the photos of his face… do you see what a sense of accomplishment this project has given him? His eyes sparkle with triumph and he exudes ‘Yay!’.
I’ll share our easy knitting pattern, perfect for a child.
Teddy has become a proficient knitter. The entire project took him under an hour to complete.
With medium weight yarn, knit a square; 12 rows of 12 stitches. Here is a previous post we have shared on knitting with kids.
When your knitted square is complete, finger knit a 6 inch tail. Here is a previous post we shared on finger knitting with kids.
Here are the step-by-step instructions (drawings by Kitty).
Method :
1. Use medium sized yarn and needles.
2. Cast on 12 stitches. Knit 12 rows. Cast off. (Here’s an article on how to teach your children how to knit).
3. Fold knitted square in half. Use your yarn to sew/thread the long edge together.
4. Use your yarn to sew/thread ONE short edge together.
5. Stuff your cat’s body with wool until he is nice and plump.
6. Finger knit a 6 inch tail for your cat. (Here’s an article on how to teach your children how to finger knit). Use your yarn to sew the tail onto the cat. Use a piece of red yarn to tie a bow around your cat’s neck. This yarn bow will form the cats head.
VOILA!! Your child has knitted a sweet and soft cat.
Here’s a fun tutorial on how kids can make their own knitting needles : Tutorial for kids, Make your own Knitting Needles.
Here’s a great article on handwork in the Waldorf home.
Happy crafting,
Blessings and magic,
Father’s Day is in 3 weeks. Just enough time for you and the kids to make him something fun!
Here are some wonderful ideas :
4. Kid-Friendly Chocolate Cake
Make Dad feel really loved this Father’s Day. And, be sure not to miss the sparkle of accomplishment you seen in your little one’s eyes as he watches his dad unwrap the gift he made.
Blessings and magic,
Donni
I’ve been on an everything-looks-better-spray-painted-gold vibe lately.
I just want to spray paint everything gold!
Everything looks so gorgeous gold, don’t you think?!
Just look how these geodes and amethyst crystals look spray painted gold!
Amazingly cool, yes!
You see, once you get the hang of spray painting gold, the sky is your limit! EVERYTHING can go gold!
This is how I painted them…
I needed :
* geodes and crystals
* washi tape (or masking tape)
* gold spray paint
Method :
1. stick the washi tape wherever you don’t want the gold paint to go. I wanted to keep the crystals natural, so I covered them with tape, pushing hard to adhere the tape well to the places I didn’t want the paint to find.
2. Spray paint the crystals gold.
3. Peal away the washi tape and VOILA! your geodes and crystals are suddenly even more special than they were before.
I’ve put them in a silver soap dish on the mantle. The look wonderful against the patina of the silver… shining and sparkling like magic.
Here are some other gold spray paint tutorials I’ve done recently :
Are you now hooked on gold spray paint too?
Blessings and magic,
Donni
We are officially in the Harry Potter stage of our lives.
Kitty has read the first two books (alas, she has to wait a year to read the third).
She is utterly entranced.
And, of course, whatever Kitty finds awesome, Teddy finds awesome too.
So, Harry Potter craze, here we come.
This summer has been all about wands, magic spells and a myriad of other wizardry things.
Today, Kitty wanted to make a crown.
This is what we made… isn’t it gorgeous!!
Lucky for us, all the goodies we needed could be found in my workshop.
* a silver hairband
* bendy wire
* a blue paper rose
* blue felt balls
* pliers for cutting wire
* my hot glue gun
Cut a length of wire about a foot and a half long using the pliers.
We will make the peaks of the crown in the middle third of the hairband using the wire.
Start by winding one end of the wire around the headband to secure it.
Make a triangle with the wire. Use the pliers to help you make a sharp point in the wire at the top of the peak.
Make the center peak a little taller than the two side peaks.
Secure the wire to the end of the hairband / crown by winding it tightly and snipping it off with the pliers.
Now use your glue gun to stick the paper rose and felt balls in place.
Voila… your beautiful, dainty crown is ready to be worn by a princess.
Kitty made a few smaller tiaras using a hair slide, wire and paper roses too.
The kids are running around with crowns and tiaras, wands and capes.
Today is FULL of magic.
Blessings and magic,
Donni
We spent the morning making pretty houses for our Fairy Garden.
We painted wooden birdhouses in bright rainbow colors. Both children declared that ‘bright rainbow colors’ attract fairies… did you know that?
Materials we needed :
1. We lined the table with craft paper so that the kids could paint without fear of painting on the furniture.
2. We decided on the style and color we wanted our fairy house to be and painted happily.
3. When the paint on the fairy houses were completely dry, we took our fairy houses outside and sprayed them with a liberal coating of polyurethane. This seals the paint and prepares our fairy houses for the outdoors.
Look how wonderful our fairy houses look. They sure are BRIGHT and COLORFUL!
I think a whole crowd of fairies will be attracted to our Fairy Garden.
NOTE : If your little ones want to make a fairy house just like these but you don’t want to run around finding all the materials you’ll need, I’ve listed a Fairy House Kit in The Magic Onions Shop just for you. You’ll get everything you’ll need, shipped right to your doorstep.
Happy summer crafting,
Blessings and magic,
Donni
At the start of summer, we planted two cherry tomato plants.
Wow… have they produced!!
We have feasted for weeks on gorgeous tasting bursts of summer.
The kids have picked them daily, popping tomatoes into their mouths while they are still warm from the sun.
We have eaten caprese salads, tomato mayo sandwiches, tomato and basil spaghetti, tomato ragu.
And, still, our little tomato plants keep giving us more.
Today, we made tomato jam and, boy, is it yummy!!
Best of all, it is SO easy to make.
* 3 lbs tomatoes
* 1 tsp grated ginger
* 2/3 cup sugar
* 1 tsp lemon juice
* 1/4 tsp salt
Dice the tomatoes roughly. I quartered the cherry tomatoes.
Add tomatoes, sugar, ginger, lemon juice and salt to a saucepan.
Bring to the boil.
Reduce heat and simmer until your jam thickens.
That’s it!! How easy is that?!!
We eat our jam on fresh bread and butter – half of it is gone already!!
Yum!!!!
It’s not too sweet.
The tiny amount of ginger compliments the tomato taste so well.
We all agree… this jam is THE BEST.
Thank you, Mother Earth for the daily gifts you give us.
Blessings and magic,
Donni