tea time

   As a part of our daily rhythm we have tea time each day in the afternoon.  Our meals and snacks are the anchors of our day and when the planned story-times, outdoor adventures, crafts and special activities slip through the cracks (which is frequently I must say), the moments when we sit down to eat together remain the regular beats in the pulse of our lives.

   Tea time, which falls between lunch and dinner, is Naiya's favorite.  It differs from all of our other meals in that it always takes place on the floor, picnic style.  We have a special cloth that we sit upon and we serve our tea from a sweet little kettle.  We usually also indulge in a small snack of fruit, veggies, toast or crackers.  (Sometimes we even have a muffin or, dare I confess, some cookie nibblets.) 

 

   We've been having tea time for so long, it's a wonder my little one is still so delighted each time we lay out our afternoon spread.  Maybe it's the special place or the promise of dainty serving dishes and cups.  Mostly, I think that she just loves the name.

easy waldorf doll coat

A while back Oma made this sweet Waldorf doll for Naiya.  Some of her clothes were purchased, but my mom, clever woman that she is, made the cute coat out of an old sweater.  Like me, mum is not a button hole maker and is kind of a stitch-it-quick sort of sewer.  I thought the idea so clever that I wanted to share it.

Since it was already put together this isn't a great pictorial how-to, but I think you can see how it was done fairly easily just by looking at the finished product.

The front two panels were taken from a button up sweater my mum pulled out of her clothing donation bag.  She cut the body/sleeve pieces with buttons already in place.  The bottom edge was the existing bottom edge of the sweater and so needed no finishing.

The back panel is a single piece including arms that was sewn by machine onto the two front panels.

The sleeve ends were turned inside to give them a finished edge and sewn in place with a very simple decorative embroidery stitch.

Lastly a strip of the sweater was folded over the top of the coat (as seen in the above photo) to make a collar.  Again, this was sewn on with a machine.

I don't know what kind of fabric this is but it doesn't seem to unravel on the edges.  That may not be true of all material.

I think she said this took only about 15 or 20 minutes to make.

Thanks Oma!  We love both sweater and doll (and feel inspired to sew some more simple outfits on our own).

for those who wonder from whence come those curls

Naiya with her daddy.

Our last hurrah of Summer was celebrated with a day at the cold Oregon coast.

gnomes in the garden

   Back in the day, I was one of those folks who thought garden gnomes were kind of tacky.  It's funny how having children with magical imaginations can change one's perception and judgment of the world. 
   This guy made his first appearance at Naiya's birthday party last year surrounded by a troop of toadstools.  After that festive event he somehow found his way to our back yard and every now and again we find him hidden under different shrubberies.  Sometimes he disappears for days then resurfaces, to our daughter's amusement, hidden beneath a fern or amongst the bamboo stalks.  I'm still wary of plastic pink flamingoes but I have to admit I enjoy this fellow quite a lot.

   Ryan sometimes tells stories to Naiya about Ladybird the Ladybug and a few months back, Ladybird came across a gnome in a tall blue cap (just like the one in our yard!)  I didn't hear this narrative firsthand, but I later learned from Naiya that the reason he (and all gnomes) appear to be statues is that they're only awake at night.  The sunlight apparently freezes them in their tracks.  How Ryan learned this bit of lore I do not know.  He's got some otherworldly knowledge that trickles out of him now and again.

 
   A few weeks later, another gnome was introduced in the Ladybird story.  This one had a racing snail and, wouldn't you know it, the next day he showed up in the back yard too.  They're sneaky little characters and oh so tastefully enhance our enchanted garden.

super sculpey mini fairie crafts

Last week the Fairie Queen left these sweet little houses on the back doorstep for Naiya.

So for crafts today Naiya wanted to make something to gift back to her beloved monarch.  We pulled out our old, old eight pound box of Super Sculpey and set to work.

In case you're not familiar with Super Sculpey, it's a pretty pliable oven fire clay that's fairly easy for children to manipulate and bakes into a hard, paintable, water resistant finish in just 15 minutes in your home oven.

Regular Sculpey comes in a variety of colors but at the time I purchased this bulk Super Sculpey (which is a little less brittle than the regular) it only came in this odd flesh color.  Because of this unique tone, it's particularly good for crafting people or magical creatures.

 It's available at most craft stores.


Years ago I was making little elfin dolls with it and after two decades in storage (wait, does that make me sound incredibly old?), the stuff is still good.  Gotta love Sculpey.

Naiya had the grand idea that she'd mold and carve a new set of dishes for the garden sprites and set to work.

I helped her with a few of the shapes and the flatware but all the decorating was of her design.  Dishes and cups are pretty simple for a four or five year old to turn out and she felt so accomplished when viewing her finished products.

She preferred them unpainted and in no time at all the table in the fairie garden was primed for tea-time.

I'm sure the Queen will be pleased.

vocabulary bombs

"Mommy, can we play bomb cellar?" Naiya just asked me.
I'm a little taken aback by this question.  Where on earth did she hear about bomb cellars?  I fear someone has been telling her frightening stories.  Maybe, as is often the case, she just overheard someone talking and so is trying out some new vocabulary.
"How do we play that?" I ask, worried about where this is going.
She looks at me a if I'm a bit dim witted.  "I'll go get the balm," she replies, "and you be the seller." 
"Oh," I dumbly respond as she runs in the next room for her lip balm collection.

papier-mâché doll furniture

   Our whole family cycled through some kind of stomach flu this week so I haven't posted in many a day.  This morning though, I had this nifty craft idea.  I'm still working on the execution but I thought the notion was a good one. It's likely that there are a number of folks who can turn out something more beautiful than my first couple of tries.  (Run with it I say, if it strikes your fancy.)  The idea was papier-mâché doll furniture.

   There are a few great companies out there making cute stuff of sustainably harvested, fairly traded this and that for, I suppose, not a huge fortune.  But why not manufacture just what you need to the scale of your homemade fairies and dolls with the satisfaction of having done it yourself for only pennies from your pocket?  (And kids love to help with papier-mâché!)  Well, that's what I was thinking when I looked at some furniture in our home and tried to reproduce it in fairie size.


Naiya and I decided to start with a bed.  The framework is a reproduction of our guest bed made out of pipe cleaners.

We laid a bit of thin cardboard (cut from a cereal box) onto the raised base and then proceeded to wrap the entire thing with thin strips of paper grocery bags dipped in a mixture of white glue and water (about 4 parts glue to 1 part water).

It took about 2 hours to dry.  We glued some little beads on for bed knobs and  covered it with a little pillow and spread.

Next up, a rocking chair...