makings this week

 I made this mat for in front of the kitchen sink to keep my feet cozy. The top is thick linnen, the back is a felted jumper (sweater) and there are two layers of bamboo batting so far. It sais on it 'life is beautiful' because who doesnt need reminding while their doing the dishes? (and beause Ive been waiting for a project to use that gorgeous fabric tape!)

 I re-painted the roof and doors of this toy chicken coop. They were brown but I much prefer this red (another wonderful thing about wooden toys, with a little sandpaper, watercolour paint and bees wax polish we can change them to suit us so easily)
I thought id include our 'little yoga' book in the picture, its a great childrens book. Its an absolute favourite with all the day care children we do 'baby yogurt' many times a day!

 Weve made our first felted egg ready for easter. Its being used currently as a little bed but i will make more and fill them with something special in a few weeks ready for an egg hunt.

My Mum made this tiny granny rug for the doll house rocking chair, isnt it adorable!

We head of on our holiday tomorrow morning (3am!) so I will be back in this space in a week

weekending

For a long time ive been trying to bring my pot plants indoors but as they arent suited to low light they have all needed to go back outside. Finally on Saturday I got a few plants that are supposed to be indoors! This one is on my (ahem,over crowded!) breakfast bar, I love having it there already.

(purple wooden cave and felted acorns are from my friend Kellies shop The Indigo Forest)

We got lots of firewood from a house up the road. A large pine tree in their yard fell down during a recent storm so they are giving away the wood for free. On Saturday night we had a fire

 As soon as Autumn hits I love thatI can smell a distant hint of fire in the air pretty much all the time outdoors. I love that we were contributing to that wonderful Autumn/Winter smell:)

 I got some stumps to put around the garden for children to climb and jump off. They made great foot stools and snack tables. (and also made it feel like we were at a campsite fire spot)

By the way, we are going on holiday to Queensland at the end of the week and Ive shut my shop already. I will open it soon after the 11th of April

my discovering waldorf journey

Ive written a piece for The Magic Onion's Discovering Waldorf series about "Waldorf inspirations in my home day care" 

Here is a link to it if youd like to check it out!

muddy fun in my garden

 A few mornings ago the day care children and I dug up the last of our potatoes. Today after adding manure and straw we planted the bed with broad beans. Broad beans really are my favourite thing to plant with children. The seeds are big and easily handled and the sprouts are extra exciting because of their large size. Everyone had fun poking them into the ground and saying 'bye bye, well see you when you sprout!' (except for josh who was saying 'night night, see you in the morning!)

 After that I let my chooks out to stretch their legs. The chickens don't free range all the time because they are rather mischevious....

 See what I mean? she is heading straight for our newly planted broad bean seeds! They realy seem to be able to sniff out newly planted seeds

 Lucky they lay us so many delicious fresh eggs. Weve been eating so many scrambled eggs lately, theres just nothing better on these cool days. They are best served with home grown tomatoe sauce from our local craft co-op (yes aj, I got some more. hope your enjoying yours too!)

now that the hot weather is over our rainbow chard has sprung back to life so soon we will be cooking more egg and rainbow chard slice

On the weekend Anneke and I checked out a local market that is being held at my new favourite cafe. It was lots of fun an I got some ridiculously cheap plants (yay me!) Im contemplating setting up a stall and selling some hand made goodies there one day. If only days were just a few hours longer so that I would have more making time...

I am thankful to say, now that Hansi has gone on to school Im feeling so much more relaxed with one less child. I swapped my days around and now have monday mornings off. Im enjoying my days so much more now that im not quite so buisy. Now... must resist the urge to accept more work (ill try, its just so hard to say no to looking after more little ones, there all just far too cute:)

visitors, autumnness and making making:)

 My sister Anneke has been visiting and brought her adorable puppy Disel along. I forgot to take pictures of us but of course I took lots of photos of this little guy. We had a nice day with Mum yesterday then made carbonara for tea. This morning I had no day care children (poor little sickies) So we took the puppy walking and discovered a beautiful cafe i'd been meaning to check out. Looking forward to going to our local markets together on Sat morning (another thing ive been meaning to check out)

 Heres some autum things weve been doing in my day care... Autumn tree with crayon and watercolour leaves, apples, birds etc.

 Ive been writing down my fav songs and verses and sticking them on the walls to remind me to sing them more often with the children. Its working! Here are our two Autum faves

 (they are stuck either side of the autumn tree)

I made some bees wax autumn leaves and the children helped me string them together and hang them below our photo board

Unfortunately this is our autumn nature table... Yep ill get back to that:)

 heres a few more things ive been making for the shop. This doll quilt is in there (although perhaps not for long, Im way to in love with it he he)

 Ive also been making some organic merino hand felted crowns. This ones in there

This ones a WIP, a few more details to go

My goodness I need to post more often so that I dont have 3 topics to one post! Appoligies about the post overload

thursday craftiness

I ran out of the organic merino wool rovings a few weeks back so my blanket hasn't been progressing very much at all!

Im happy to be spinning again now that I have some more.
Today I began spinning some of the light purple I dyed with 'greener shades' dye the other day. It accidently came out in all different shades as id never used a heated dye before so it ended up un even, I love it so I hope I can get this effect again!

Ive also been having far too much fun working on some tiny little quilts for the doll house, I love them!

Ive always had a thing for minitures, I used to make tiny teddies and sew them tiny outfits when I was about 10:)

The mini quilts are hand stiched and made just like I make 'real' quilts. The only difference was I just used calico as the 'batting' (I wouldnt have used anything except the colours might have shown through) And the binding isn't double thick. (oh and the size...)

Heres the back

And of course a tiny pillow to match.

Those little wooden dolls were the first waldorf inspired toys I ever got, when id only just started out my home day care

mini quilts sure do come in handy on a cool autumn morning

The making of Skylas first birthday flower garland

Ive been buisy making a flower garland for the lovely Abby (who blogs at My Love Is ) She is creating a beautiful bedroom for her adorable bubby Skyla and ordered some flowers to go on her daughters bed head. I cant wait to see the room it when its finished!

Abby mentioned what a shame it was that we are far appart as she would have loved to pop in to see how it was coming along and I agreed. What would be the next best thing? A 'The making of' post of course!

 First I divided my kilo of  organic merino wool into 100gram pieces (I started with the weighing scale out on the lawn on a nice sunny day....then little mitch 'accidently let out out the chooks! It got a little trickier with feathered friends about so we headed inside!)

Each piece is platted as this makes it easier to handle.

Next each colour is dyed. I tried out using 'greener shades' dye (an eco friendly dye) for the purple and I was very impressed. I will definately get more colours of this in the future.

I rinse them and pat them dry. After that every chair in my house becomes re-purposed as a drying rack:)

This pic is of them almost dry (although I re dyed the pink and yellow as they werent quite the shade I wanted)

Next part is wet felting. The rovings are layered in different directions which makes a nice strong felt

I like making felt on the side of my sink as the sink ridges seem to help it come together nicely. Oh and so I can look out my kitchen window at birdies who come to nibble on seeds we sprinkled for them:)

I make the string by wet felting a long thin chunk of rovings. It involves a lot of rolling to get it firm and well shaped! Here are some of the flowers and leaves cut out ready to make their way to the garland.

And here is the finished piece, ready to be sent of to brighten Skylas room!

fairys soup and this and that:)

 Ive been growing lots of flowers near the children's play area so that there are plenty to be picked. I have such wonderful memories of making flower 'potions' with my cousins when we were little and I knew the daycare children would have fun with it too!

 Today we brought some in and the children had fun cutting off little bits with scissors, mixing and arranging them

 The big leaves are from Benny's favourite plant, 'lambs ear'. Cameron loves collecting them, rubbing their fuzziness on his skin and calls them 'feathers'

 This mini muffin tray that I thrifted long ago always finds so many creative uses. today it was a feeding trough for the farm animals. I love all the purple flowers we found this morning. The aroma was wonderful!

 especially when it was all crushed in the mortar and pestle. Next time we will do it outside so that we can add water as that will be even more fun

 I got these basket draws on the weekend and they have made the play area so much more organised.
 Id not got anything until now as I hate to have too much furniture in a room as it can look to cluttered. It turns out they did just the opposite, I'm glad to have them in our tiny space. One day soon I will take pictures of the play space as it looks now, its changed a lot. (I would have taken them this morning but I didn't want to go get another camera)
This is what I found after Josh went to bed last night. Clever boy:)

I finished this quilt and pillow set this afternoon (from the left over fabric of this quilt:) Unfortunately for our 'Finn baby' its heading to the shop