Valentine Sweeties...

Valentine's Day is coming up and I am having so much fun making little gnome & toadstool tot sweeties. 

Little Valentine bears are in theme too.  Come and visit my shop, MamaWestWind, to see all the Valentine pretties.

Until next time...

Christmas In Pictures

Christmas 2014, Michael (10yrs) & Owen (5yrs)

Hope you had a lovely holiday.  Until next time...

Teacher Appreciation Gifts

I am in love with making these pretty heart ornaments.  They are made out of cashmere sweaters & wool stuffing.  I love cashmere but it doesn't make good, sturdy doll making material. Through the years I've amassed a small collection of it and I'm so glad I now have a project to use it all up.  I embroidered a pretty snowflake design with shiny glass beads to sparkle on the tree.  We stamped these cute little containers with the teachers last name initial and filled it with candy & a "heart felt" thank you note.

I think I'll have to make a ton of these for my handmade tree.  I can't decide which I like better, the red cashmere with white embroidery or taupe with red embroidery.  Which is your favorite?  

Until next time...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hi all, hope you all had a lovely Valentine's Day! I was so inspired by all of your comments about what you were doing with your littles for Valentine's Day.  Ulitmately we celebrated very simply.  We made eachother handmade Valentines and chocolaty brownie treats.  My dear husband suprised me with chocolates and a hilarious card that my boys and I read over & over laughing about. I called my Gram who I hadn't talked to for far too long.

My husband took us all out to dinner and there was the sweetest Dad there with three Valentines.  He was treating his three small daughters to a nice dinner. What a loving Dad!  It made me think those little girls are going to know exactly how their future mate should treat them because Daddy already showed them how to love. 

So how did you show your love this Valentine's Day? 

Until next time...

Winner of the Valentine Bear!

 

The winner of the Valentine Bear, by random number generator is...

Michelle Emery, who said,

Your creations are so sweet. I already made a needle felted heart bunting for the nature table. The kids and I plan to make beeswax and EO salve for daddy.

Thank you so much to everyone who entered & shared the Valentine Bear giveaway! I have loved reading your comments and hearing about all your Valentine plans with your littles.  Warms the heart! 

If you have a last minute gift to give, I have just a couple little Valentine items left in the shop. Visit MamaWestWind on etsy. 

Valentine Bear Giveaway!

 

I'm so enjoying reading up on what everyone is doing for Valentine's Day!  It's giving me lots of fresh ideas for my littles.  If you have not yet signed up for the giveaway please do! 

Visit the Valentine Bear Giveaway post, here.  

Until next time...

Valentine Projects & Giveaway!

 

Over the years I've written a few posts on Valentine's Day & we've made lots of Valentine inspired projects too. Here are a few of my favorites. The above post entitled, "Mama Guilt & the Waldorf Police", wasn't exactly about Valentine's Day but a few of our projects were talked about, including these toilet paper roll heart shaped candles. 

 I also wrote a tutorial to make this heart ornament. 

 

Last year I made these fun Valentine Spool Dolls.  

This year I've been busy making these sweet, Valentine gnomes, bears and mice and we haven't yet done any projects for our home yet.  I think we need some more heart shaped candles & maybe some Valentine sugar cookies!

Comments are closed, winner is posted!  Michelle Emery, who said,

Your creations are so sweet. I already made a needle felted heart bunting for the nature table. The kids and I plan to make beeswax and EO salve for daddy.

So in celebration of one of my favorite holidays, I would love to giveaway this little bear.  I will close comments on Sunday evening, 7 pm mountain time (9 pm est), that is February 9th, 2014, to get her in the mail for you to receive by Valentine's Day (for the US).  I will ship Internationally as well (even though you won't receive her in time). So please enter wherever you may be.  I will post the winner here so please check back with me on Sunday night. 

To enter this giveaway you must be a follower of this blog and please tell me what you plan to do or make with (or for) your littles this year to celebrate Valentine's Day.  For a second chance to win please share this giveaway and come back and tell me how you shared, via facebook, twitter, pinterest, blog, tell a friend, etc.  & that's it!

If you so desire please visit my shop, MamaWestWind on etsy.  I still have a few more of the above Valentine items to sell.  Also "like" my MamaWestWind page on facebook. 

Thank you friends!  Until next time...

Valentine Gnomes...MamaWestWind

I've been busy!  Besides Autumn inspired dolls, I think Valentine dolls are just about my favorite dolls to make.  All that red, pink, white and LOVE, just beautiful.  So, if you're looking for some Valentines for your sweets, consider adopting a MamaWestWind doll. 

(Please excuse all the photo labeling.  I've been having problems with my photos being stolen lately.  So I'm experimenting with watermarking.)

Until next time...

Last Minute Christmas Crafting...

This year I did a little Christmas crafting for myself in making this simple garland with heart ornaments.  They are white wool hearts with red, beaded snowflakes.  I'm learning to embroider bit by bit.  Well, free hand embroidery I guess.  I finally learned the french knot by making these! My inspiration for the snowflake was this beautiful, delicate brooch I saw on A Polar Bear's Tale made by Waterrose on etsy.  I just love her delicate embroidery.

 

The garland is white wool wrapped twine I found at 50% off at our local craft store.  I love how simple and pretty it is.

I would love to fill our tree with hearts and these white & red wool star babies too. 

The other big craft project was making dolls for the tree house Santa brought the kids as their shared gift.  The tree house is from Magic Cabin. The furniture came from Monkeys on the Roof on etsy.  I made both boys a couple of dolls each to be the resident tree house family.  They love their tree house, it's getting played with daily.

I hate to give a bad review but I really wish I had found a source on etsy for the tree house.  It came with damaged pieces, some pieces roughly sanded, or not even finished with beeswax and not at all as pictured on the website or catalog.  The instructions on how to put it together are not helpful at all.  I really should have sent the tree house back but my littles were too excited to put it together and play with it.  I've emailed and asked Magic Cabin to replace some of the badly damaged parts & missing bolts & they have agreed to do that.  I will finish up the pieces that came rough and not waxed. 

By contrast Monkeys on the Roof furniture came exactly as pictured & exceeded my expectations.  They are sanded & polished so beautifully smooth & irresistibly touchable.  We bought the bedroom set and the table and chairs. They came in sweet, cotton bags with beautiful decorative wooden tags as well.

 Anyway, live and learn.  I'm just happy my boys are thrilled. 

Until next time...

A Peaceful Christmas...

Christmas was beautiful here, how about yours?

This year I made a real effort to not get caught up in all the things that make mothers a little crazy around holiday time.  As Advent began I felt a little stressed with my shop and all that comes with a busy holiday season. So my theme this year became, "relax".  Which may be why I'm just getting around to posting pictures.

I didn't do much of the usual stuff.  We did meaningful things like focusing on Advent, our star ladder, a peaceful bedtime routine and reading special Christmas books. We went to a fun cookie decorating party.  We made one batch of cookies ourselves, frosting them all white.  Husband and I made a ham dinner for Christmas and a sunshine cheesecake.  Christmas shopping was done almost completely online and I tried to keep it fairly simple.  I closed my shop a week before Christmas and worked on crafting for us.  It was nice and I took time to enjoy it.

My Mom and I always seem to be on the same wave length.  This year her Christmas card said, "Believe" on the cover and inside she wrote in part "The gift of Christmas was never meant to be stressing over packages, decorations or cookies...".  Yes, yes, yes!  I hope to continue to simplify our Christmas celebrations through out the years and pass on a spirit of peacefulness at Christmas time. Because a stressed out Mama never helped anyone!  Some goals for the future are to simplify our gift giving even more and get the kids more involved in giving.

The one thing I always seem to stress over is the mess after the fact.  The Christmas decor seems like too much almost immediately after Christmas and I fight the urge to tear it all down and throw the Christmas tree out the door.  Ha, ha, always room for improvement.

How were your holidays?