Trimming the Tree...

We brought home our tree last night and stayed up late drinking cocoa and eggnog and decorating it.  I forget how exciting that is for children.  It's so beautiful experiencing it all over again with them.  Though, I am paying for that late night today though with a couple of cranky boys.  Ah well, we'll chock it up to making Christmas memories. 

Christmas decorating is forever a work in progress at our house.  Crafting our decorations is half the fun!  We like simple and handmade. We have very few stored decorations actually.  Most of it is made from natural materials and composted when we're done with it.  Things like pine greenery and pine cones are brought inside.  Last year we dipped pine cones in beeswax and made a garland.  This year we hung them on the Christmas tree. 

I bought a straw wreath base to make a Christmas wreath for our door this year.  Months ago I found burlap ribbon for 50% off and snapped it up.  Wrapping it was so easy. I added some pretty fabric lace ribbon too. I found pine cones outside to hot glue to the base.  Easy and beautiful.  It made me want to paint our anemic looking door to show it off.  Perhaps brick red?

Our sweet baby Jesus, the center of it all.  Click, here, for that tutorial.

  
I also found this wool for 50% off.  I want to make a garland for our dining room.  Beeswax pine cones and more toadstool ornaments maybe?  I never need much of an excuse to make toadstools or play with beeswax.

I have to make another plug for this beautiful little book.  We finished Mary's Little Donkey last night.  A special night to end it on, after decorating our tree.  If you're looking for ways to keep the spirit and meaning of Christmas at the forefront of thought with your kids, this is a great one.  There is one illustration per chapter and they are lovely, lovely pictures.  I adore this book.  I think reading it will become a Christmas time tradition for us. 

What are you crafting or reading this Holiday season?

Until next time...

Baby Jesus, Tutorial...

Gosh it's been so long since I've done any crafting for myself!  Now that my shop is slowing down I
can focus on crafting for my family and all the important things like making Christmas cookies!

I've been wanting a special baby Jesus for years. One that fits our nativity stable. Here's a simple baby I came up with.

I began by needle felting the bedding.  I used a rough wool in neutral with speckled blue & orange in it.  Then needle felted white on top of that.  They look like little oval nests.  You can use whatever colors you like of course.  I wanted neutrals and light blue. 

I used the baby pegs I often use for my shop. If you don't have these on hand you could easily use a wooden bead and a bit of stuffing for his body.  Or even needle felt his body. 

I drew eyes on him in pencil.  The blue is a square of cashmere from a re-purposed sweater.  You can use wool felt or whatever you have on hand.  I cut it with pinking shears and then folded it in half to make a triangle. I glued the baby peg in, then glued the first folded layer of cashmere down around baby.  I did this because I wanted as little glue as possible on the top layer of cashmere, so no glue can be seen.  Next I glued the corners of the blanket down.

Here he is all finished. I love the varied textures, he's so soft and snuggled looking.  I will keep him at the center of our table and on Christmas eve we'll add him to our nativity. 

If you use this tutorial please link back here,  I would love to see them. 

Until next time...

Our Advent...

 

I have felt a little crazed this Advent season.  My etsy shop, MamaWestWind, has been buzzing and I have been crafting away, staying up too late & pushing myself perhaps a little too hard.  Ah, but every evening our bed time routine brings me back to peace.  This year we've added a few things to our Advent traditions.  The above paper advent calendar from, A Child's Dream is just beautiful. 

Every evening the boys take turns opening a window.  The drawings are just exquisite.  The boys ooh and ahh over the delicate little pictures.  

The angel descends her star ladder one star every night as we count down the days until Christmas.  

The stable awaits Mary & Joesph. Our little blue advent candle will be lit on Christmas eve.  This year we are reading, "Mary's Little Donkey and the Escape to Egypt", by Gunhild Sehlin.  It's such a beautiful book about Mary & Joesph and their journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem and their escape to Egypt.  This book is truly bringing the story alive for us.  It's told so sweetly from the perspective of Mary's donkey and the animals around them.  Each night both the boys listen intently to one chapter.  For Owen this is a major deal as he usually walks around and leaves to play while we're reading anything long or with few pictures.

 

Mary and Joseph are traveling from our kitchen towards the stable.  Each night they move a little closer.

We made this beeswax nativity last year after seeing it on Small Things blog.  I love, love, love this nativity.  So beautiful and smells so wonderful.  It resides on the nature table.

So what are your favorite Advent traditions?  I would love to hear about them.  

Until next time...

Advent Dolls...

 

Tis' the season for meaningful traditions.  Here's a new one I've added to our celebrations. These little angels & snow children are available in my shop.  They fit perfectly into a holiday ring or advent spiral.  Take 10% off all purchases with coupon code, wintersale13.

I'll be back soon with more about making our advent season meaningful.

Until next time...

If only, If only...

Between home school and my MamaWestWind business life is full to overflowing at the moment. Plus our Papa is working almost non-stop since he received a promotion.  We are so grateful for the promotion but, wow, has it ever been a transition.  For years we've thought, "if only, if only...".  You know what I mean, "If only we could (insert your own if only here), then everything would be perfect".  We've learned a lesson that there really is no "if only".  "If only" is just a distraction from the present.  Your dream can come true and yet life with all its issues does not suddenly stop and turn perfect.  No, I'm really seeing that life is NOW.  All those times we dreamed about "if only" we weren't really living in the NOW and experiencing the good here in this moment.  We were living in a future that wasn't even real.  Ha!  It's one of those lessons that I've heard and read about before yet I really didn't fully understand until I experienced it.  I'm grateful for the lesson and the reminder to stay present.  (That's not the easiest thing for me.)  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we shouldn't dream.  Dreaming is good but it can become a distraction, even a destructive thing if we're not appreciating the present.  It's so important to be grateful for the good in life right now.

So a little update on life around here. We had a simple Michaelmas.  We made our candle, designed by Michael and we light it every evening.  Certainly, the light of Saint Michael's sword has been shining and pointing out the dragons I need to slay, as evidenced in the above experience.

 

In an effort to keep my sanity in motherhood and home school, we occasionally take a mud pie day off, or a time to clean the house day.  It's similar to a teachers prep day at school, a break to prepare or cut loose!  On this day the boys made a whole mud city with a bridge, castle, moat and a whole story that went with it.  They were fascinated by the way the water flowed around it.  They played this for hours and who was I to argue with such creative play.  They loved it. I loved it and took the extra time for inner work.  

 

We've been enjoying the last of the garden.  The Morning Glories we planted in honor of my Gramma, are spectacular.  We also made a tepee and planted beans and peas awhile ago.  We wanted to see how far they might climb before it gets too cold.  Not too far at the moment.  We're excited to plant around it next Spring.

I'm enjoying home school so much more now.  For some time Michael had been floundering in reading and started to dislike it.  This year we began a reading program called, All About Reading, and it's been like a magic elixir to the problem.  Michael is improving now by leaps and bounds, gaining confidence and enjoying it.  It's so wonderful to see. 

Owen is excited to do his bit of "school" too.  So much so that he motivates me to get going in the morning.  I love his infectious enthusiasm.  Both the boys are beyond excited about Halloween of course.  Owen has been making little scarecrows all over the house & outside.

In my shop, I've mostly been working on Fall items.  Here are a few.  

Well, if you're still with me friends, thank you!  What have you been up to lately?

Until next time...

Fair and Bright...

If Candlemas Day be fair and bright
Winter will have another fight.
If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain,
Winter won't come again...

If the above poem is correct I guess we're in for another cold snap!  We had such a lovely day on Candlemas that we never got to candle making!  It was so sunny and warm. We went to our local Farmer's Market for local beeswax, then story time at our favorite used book store.  We made a pit stop at the hobby store to look at candle making supplies.  We bought some metal votive molds and pretty jelly jars.  We came home planning to make candles but then the outdoors called to us.  We had lunch on our patio and looked around at our messy Winter's neglect.  We cleaned the patio and started freshening up the garden beds and before we knew it it was too late to make candles.  That's alright we were so grateful for that warm, early "Spring" day and we had fun making candles this week!

We tried some new things this year with candle making.  The votives are orange scented.  The red candles in mini-jelly jars are patchouli scented!  I'm very excited about that, I love patchouli!  We added orange scent and lavender in the larger jelly jar.  We can't wait to try them out.  I definitely see some Valentine heart decorations for the votives in our future.

Speaking of, if you're looking for some fun Valentine candles to make, check out the heart shaped ones we made out of toilet paper rolls last year.   Looking at these, I think we just might make some more!

How was your Candlemas day?

Happy St Nicholas!

I've gone back and forth about the December holidays.  I am so conflicted about the over commercialization of Christmas, the huge build up and subsequent let down of the tree with all its many presents underneath.  Where is the true meaning of Christmas?  Sometimes I feel it gets lost in all the Christmas wrap and the extra large case of the "gimmies".  My children talk excitedly about what Santa will bring and I say, but what will we give?  Santa and all his fun seems so blown up and plastic now, like the Christmas decorations on everyone's front lawn. 

Not so St. Nicholas.  In the states he seems fairly aged and forgotten.  I haven't known really how to begin a Saint Nicholas tradition?  My kids aren't as familiar with this man and his Saintly life as they are with Santa and all his reindeer.  So I've avoided it, conflicted about what to do. I love the low key simplicity of the Saint Nicholas tradition of putting out your shoes for a few small treats.  If I could, I think I'd lose Santa and do only Saint Nick.  Though Santa does have his charms.  (See how conflicted I am?!) 

This past week we've read about the life of St Nicholas and last night on a whim and at the very last minute I put out the boys shoes.  I added some Clementines and Pistachios and that was it.  I wondered what the boys would think when they woke up.  I didn't tell them to put their shoes out.  We didn't read stories about this tradition at all.

So this morning I woke up to Owen sitting on my bed with a Clementine in his hands. 
Conversation:

Me: Where did you find that? 
Owen: In my shoes.  I threw the rest at Michael! 
Me: Jumping out of bed to peep at Michael.  Michael groggy, just waking up.  Didn't see the Clementines so I grabbed more to put in his shoes. 

The boys thought it was pretty fun.  I told them Happy St Nicholas Day!  They asked why there was food in their shoes?  And I said because it's Saint Nicholas Day!  We sat around and talked about the tradition and watched the cats, amused with their antics.  Both attracted to the shoes- (the salty Pistachios) and repulsed by them, (the citrus). Poe ate a Pistachio.  The boys devoured their Clementines and asked for more. 

Tonight Michael asked Saint Nicholas to come back again, with a wink wink at me.  So kind of a funny way to start a tradition but, ah well there we are!  We also brought our tree home last night!  It's lovely and green and the boys and I keep smelling the heavenly, piney air.  We spent the day crafting more ornaments for our Woodland Tree!  I'll be back tomorrow for the Woodland Ornament Craft Along, with pictures of our toadstool ornaments!

Until tomorrow...

Martinmas Lanterns

Martinmas has become very dear to me.  I love the act of kindness at the heart of this festival.  This year in addition to telling the story of Saint Martin I also told another story after circle time for both boys but especially for my littlest one. We also had a guest yesterday, a friend of ours who is four years old.  Last time he was with us he LOVED circle time, so even though it was Friday and we normally don't do any school activities, we did circle time and story time for him.  Circle time always seems to be a bit more magical when he joins us, we like the larger group dynamic & sharing the magic of Waldorf with him.  The story I told is from this post at Joyful Toddlers, called "A Story of Autumn Light".  Such a sweet story for little ones and a beautiful & simple way to explain the darkness this time of year.  My favorite line in the story is "...we can keep ourselves and others warm by doing acts of kindness, to warm our hearts.” 

We also made horseshoe Martinmas cookies from the recipe at Raising Little Shoots.  The boys loved them, although they invoked the same sugar cookie cut out frustration for me, lol! (You can read about my history with cut out cookies here.)

We made our lanterns from the instructions in All Year Round. Out of all my Waldorf books, I think this one is my favorite. It has instructions for every Waldorf craft I can think of.  I often wonder why I even bother with Pinterest when I have all the instructions to these projects sitting on my bookshelf!  We made the lovely circular lanterns from stiff watercolor paintings they painted just for Martinmas.  Then I cut out stars and moons and suns and we glued kite paper onto the cut out shapes.  I couldn't help making the 5 sided lantern as well.  I chose a gnome picture (pg 264)  at the back of the book to decorate it with.  I enlarged the image to 120% and then cut through the copy and watercolor paper with an exacto knife.  If you do this make sure you have very sharp exacto blades, mine could have been sharper.  I love how it came out though.  We glued the blue cut out gnome to Michael's lantern and he's thrilled he has a gnome too. 

I love how the lanterns brighten up our dark evenings this time of year.  Tomorrow we will head out at dark for our lantern walk and hopefully be joined by our friends as well.

How will you be celebrating Martinmas? 

Until next time...