plant dyed silk in the playroom

Back when Spring had just just begun I posted some pics of the twenty yards of silk I had plant dyed with friends at Naiya's school.  Since then the ideas for hanging this lovely, sunny silk have undergone a number of modifications, not the least of which was swapping the playroom and office spaces over the last two weeks.

Finally today I enlisted Oma and Opa's help in getting the silk up onto the ceiling.  With our three minds put together we came up with the concept of looping the fabric around an embroidery hoop that hung from hook-eyes bolted into the ceiling around the perimeter of the light.  From there the material swags over to the picture rails where it is held in place under a dowel kept up with tacks and nails. 

I think we're still not totally pleased with the look.

Now that I see it all in place, I'm thinking the three foot width ought to have been completely expanded at the outer edges instead of gathered into two foot wide clusters. 

Perhaps I'll make some adjustments in the days to come.

For now we love the way the light shimmers around this new bright room and relish in the radiance of the sunburst that hovers over our heads.

chickenalities

We were talking about our chicks with Oma and Opa this evening and I was saying that I like to get different breeds so that we can more easily distinguish each chicken and her unique personality.  Oma mentioned that when they had their chickens, they were all the same (brothers and sisters).  Despite their similarities, she assured us, they were easily differentiated.  Their personalities were just so distinct.

"But they're not people," Naiya interrupted, "they all have different chicken-alities."

new chicks

We've done it again.  We had been toying with the idea of adding a few more chicks to our flock and today we went out to just take a look and perhaps decide on the breeds for a new pair.  Somehow we went from "window shopping" to purchasing and came home with a trio instead.  

 

Since there are three, we all have the opportunity to name one.  I've already decided the Americauna will be Persophone.  Naiya's chicken will once more be the biggest, feathery-footed girl.  She's a Cochin of some kind and so far the name choices are Sunflower, Jelly Bean and Sprudel.  We'll see where we are with naming in a week or so.  Ryan is also taking his time creating a moniker for the Black Australorp.  She's the big chick in the pictures and we're guessing she's at least two days older than the others.  Hopefully it's not just that she's a he.  We're loving them already and are planning to make a greater effort to handle them in order to generate an even friendlier covey this time around.

simple felt crowns

 

We've been playing dolls quite a bit lately and Naiya's stories keep leading us down the princess path.  After many a tiara twisted from play silks or cut from paper and temporarily held in place with a bit of scotch tape, we finally devoted a crafting afternoon to making several sizes of crowns for all the royalty who constantly show up in our games and play.  These aren't the most elegant diadems we've ever concocted but they were simple and Naiya was able to help make them and did the decorating entirely on her own.

We began by measuring a length of elastic around her head and hand-sewing the ends together.

We then folded a piece of paper in half and cut a crown pattern.  (When the paper was unfolded, the finished pattern was perfectly symmetrical.)

We placed this pattern on a piece of craft felt that was folded in half at the bottom edge.  We traced it with a pencil (one could also use fabric chalk) and cut out the crown shape.

After unfolding the fabric, we slathered on some Tacky Glue.  (Tacky Glue works well on fabric and holds pretty firmly over time.)

Finally, we laid the elastic band on the felt (with the stitched seam inside) and re-folded the bottom edge.  We carefully lined up the points and sealed the band inside.

While Naiya's masterpiece was drying in the sun (which took a couple of hours), we measured a few dolls heads and prepared for ranks of royalty to arrive.

For decorating, I set out little bowls full of buttons, beads and costume jewels and handed Naiya another paintbrush along with a pot of glue.  She decorated all the crowns in similar fashion with bling at each pointy tip.  All the ladies are ever so pleased with their new regal head-wear.

papier-mâché stool

It's not a secret that I'm no fan of plastic, but because we're on a budget, always accept and appreciate hand-me-downs and gifts from friends and relatives and have limited skills for larger scale building projects, we do have a few plastic items in our home.  One of these is the perfectly sized little four-legged stool from Ikea.  Naiya sits on it when she draws or paints at her easel or uses it for various games, structures or vehicles.  For months I was trying to find tree rounds to make one from wood but, more from lack of tools than from lack of materials, eventually I let go of the idea.  The one she uses is really sturdy and also serves as a table, a boat, a car and a doll house (among other things).  Aside from it's plastic-ness and shocking green color, it's great.
So last week I decided to just hide it's true nature under a layer of re-used natural-ness.  (I actually did this same thing to the hideous pink and gray bathroom tile that surrounded my fireplace when I first moved into my house.)  I covered it with torn up paper shopping bags.

 Weird, eh?  But I dig it so much more than the day-glo green and there's (seemingly) no more plastic furniture in Naiya's play room!

The torn bag bits were dipped into a mixture of about 4 parts white glue to 1 part water and the stool dried in about 3 hours next to the heater vent.  One could also paint the surface I suppose, but I like the organic look of the brown bag.

needle felted family

These are the newest additions to our needle felted clan.  Lady Spring is there on the right (the current matriarch of our Nature Table) and because we often have need of a family for our puppet shows and story times, I created a little girl and a daddy as well.  I think I need the assistance of a stylist to create man-hair.  This poor chap has a dreadful bowl cut that surely no respectable farmer father would sport.  Perhaps I'll just top him off with a hat.

These were based on the same design as the Mother Earth doll I created a few months ago.  (For that tutorial click here.)

People are always surprised at how simple needle felting can be.  Just last week my sister-in-law was over and said she didn't really understand what needle felting was.  When I pulled out my felting needle and whipped up a little bird-like critter in a few minutes she seemed somewhat shocked.  "That's all you do?!"  she exclaimed.  Yes, there isn't really much to it.  For those wary or who feel lacking in artistic talent, know that needle felting is one of the simplest, most fool-proof forms of creation around.  Go ahead, get yourself a needle and some wool and give it a go!

(To see some other easy needle felted projects I've previously posted, click here, here, here, here or here.)

bleeding heart

Every year I am amazed by this plant.  One day I notice a few shoots sticking up from the brown, post-winter ground and two weeks later there's a beautiful, two foot tall shrub there covered with stalks of bleeding hearts.

This year Naiya really discovered it for the first time.  She says it's her favorite plant because there are a whole string of relatives upon it.  "Mommy," she explained to me one day, tapping each flower with her delicate finger, "there's a baby and a little brother and a big sister and a teenager and a grandma and a grandpa and a mommy and a daddy. They're a whole family of flowers all together!"

Now I think it might be my favorite plant too.

There's even a Legend of the Bleeding Heart...