Felting, Spring crafts with the kidlets and the start of my day care going green

Yesterday me and the kids did some felting together again. As you can see they were willing to get their hands soapy and wet with me this time, yay:) (they loved pat, pat patting it)

This is what we were making the felt for, a pretty spring banner to celebrate all the flowers and tree blossoms outside.

We also made sunflower sun catchers (with grated crayon and ironed it between two pieces of baking paper, like I've seen around in blogland) I am very excited that the older kids are now almost 3 and starting to get excited about what they make! The babies (18 months) seem to feed off the excitement and just love sitting with the big kids around the table and having a go. Ive missed having 'big' kids to craft with

We've begun decorating a seasonal tree with spring flowers. I don't have room for a nature table so I'm going to have a little spot on our table to put pretty nature finds etc.

Here's the beach felt play mat I tried to make way back here . Now that Ive got the hang of felting I was able to fix it by needle felting the blue and yellow together better and just felting it longer. At the time I thought I'd done something seriously wrong but really I just hadn't felted it for long enough! Now I'm pleased with it and glad it didn't get thrown out when I moved house like I thought I did. I also added a few bits of white 'sea foam' waves. I was asked for fishes and 'boat' so I dug a wooden boat i made ages ago out of the toy box and cut out some felt fishes (which I will sew together and stuff with wool when I get the chance) It seems that life is quite easy with natural toys!

I thought it would be hard and expensive to go natural but look what we already have!

Tractor was bought at our new local craft co-opp (I walked down last week to have a first look and its great! Many talented crafters in Port Wakefield it seems:)

Colourful puzzle from Kadina craft co-opp a few years ago, dolls are the ones I made  here. They need some TLC but their still cute.

The green 'snakes' at the front were made by two little boys yesterday, I just forgot to send them home with them so thought id include them in the pic.

Basket of wooden toys I've made recently and play silks i made here, strawberries from this super easy tutorial, wooden puzzle was around a dollar at a garage sale a few years ago (and has been a favourite ever since, a dollar well spent!)

The beautiful dolls cot is my favourite toy out of the lot, my dad and I built it together when I was little. Lucky for me it visited here for many years and got played with by 3 of my cousins, otherwise it would have almost definitely got opp shopped before I got old enough to want to keep it for my own one day children. Levin offered it back to me when I started doing daycare and I gladly welcomed it along with memories of my special dolls, back.  

Lastly a few nice nature based books, most of which we already had. Ive been thinking a lot about the books I read to the children daily, ever since buying  Louise hay's children's book 'I think, I am!' It oozes positivity and uplifts me when I read it. I want to be reading more books like that to the kids, much of what I had really lacked meaning and soul so I've simplified our book collection and will spend a good chunk of the grant money on books when I get it. (I actually gave the first copy I bought to my friend Lindsay for his son Callum. Has he got it yet Kaia? If so i hope you guys love it as much as i do!)

Anyway, so I've been pleasantly surprised how much I have been able to do with little or no money. Really far too many toys had accumulated over time, only what was on the top of the toy boxes was being used and some beautiful handmade toys were forgotten about down the bottom. Most of the old toys and books are in garbage bags ready for the opp shop if no one asks for them and no one has so far! (yay team ban the plastics :) The kids love the new toys so I think very soon we will be an all natural day care. I feel so good about this, I'm so glad I finally decided to make this change

These are my favourite craft I've done with the kids, they were a gift for their parents last Christmas (i made extras and kept the cracked ones to display) Just wanted to share them because their so cute:)

One more random pic just because its pretty, I love strawberries and blue berries wrapped in lettuce from my garden, yum!