Wet-Felted Soap

A bar of natural, wet-felted soap takes just three materials to make - soap, roving and water - and can be made in about 20 minutes, plus additional drying time. Not only is the process quick, easy and delicious smelling, but there is plenty of room for imagination and creativity.

 Felting soaps can also lengthen the life of your soap, and even eliminate the need for a washcloth.

 Whether you make one bar of soap for a special gift or several for your home, soap felting makes a safe, simple, hands-on home project for adults and kids alike!

My niece had a birthday recently so I decided to felt up some sweet smelling soaps for her.

 These soaps I purchased from a good friend at Two Trees Soap, who makes the most wonderful, all natural, amazing smelling, long lasting soap.

I started with her Clary Shea soap.

Clary Sage essential oil is a low, calming, and reassuring scent as is mellow Rosewood. Ylang Ylang oil is distilled from fragrant blossoms is a sweet and mild aphrodisiac. Colored with Red Clay and ground Rose Petals, this soap adds a nice finish to your end-of-the-day bath. Wonderful for relieving cramps and hormone stress.

 

Lay out the wool so that it is about as thick as a normal washcloth. Wrap the wool around the soap, both lengthwise and widthwise so that the bar is completely covered.

You can layer colors together, or just add a stripe of a contrasting color if you choose to jazz it up a bit.

 Take your felting needle and poke it into the roving, focusing on places where it is loosest.

 Soon you will have a fairly secure little package that will look something like this.

 Immerse your soap into hot, hot soapy water.

At this point, the soap and wool will look like a wet cat. Gently begin to massage the soap and wool together. Be careful not to be too rough at this stage or you'll expose the soap underneath.

Continue to rub ... squeeze... dip it in the water... rub... squeeze... dip (you get the picture) until it is holding together nicely.

When the felt starts to shrink down, you need to up the agitation a notch. I scrub my soap on a sushi bamboo mat, but you can use anything that will give you more agitation. Roll it around on the mat and keep at it until the felt is flat, snug and smooth with no holes.

Run your felted soap under some cold water and then squeeze to remove any excess water. At this point you can set your soap somewhere to dry completely. The wool will continue to felt as the bars are used for washing, and the bars should be allowed to air dry between uses for best results.

Off these sweet smelling little packages went, infused with some Auntie love.

(My niece and I on her birthday)

Looking forward to more soapy creations.

Be Well

~ Shanti~

ALL SPUNK NO JUNK!!!! Link up!!

Hello beautiful friends...oh sweet summertime...sure seems to be a busy time for all, and I mean, can you believe July is half over!!!!!!! 

Please join us in our Monday link up...

we love seeing your creations!! 

xoxo

maureen & shanti!

Inspiration Stones

On walks and days at the beach we always seem to come home with pockets full of stones (me included!) They often end up on our nature table or in the fairy garden. This time, we thought we would try something different and make some stones with one word reminders for us all.  Words we want to feel and embrace in life right now. Words to inspire.

To create:

 we choose our word, cut out letter decals to spell it and applied them to the top of the stone.

***

***

These words now look up at us from around the home... gentle reminders to breath in the gratitude, open up to the love and be present to the joy.

I think these would be lovely in the garden, in plants, on tables around the house... pretty much anywhere!

May this day bring you a sense of gratitude, love and joy.

~ Shanti ~ 

Wax Rocks

Looking for a simple summer activity?

These wax rocks just might fit the bill!

Here's how it works...

Gather some rocks.

Warm them in the oven or out in the bright sun until they are warm enough for wax to melt on them.

Place them on a sheet of paper.

Take your crayons and draw away!

The girls we delighted to see how the colors swirled and blended.

The best rocks for this seem to be river stones if you can find some ~ nice and smooth.

Somehow wearing a cat mask seems to help with the process too ; )

Be sure to have close supervision and explain that only the crayons should touch the rocks. 

With Love
~ Shanti ~ 

ALL SPUNK NO JUNK LINK UP!!!!

Happy Monday everyone!!!! 

Hope everyone enjoyed a safe and crafty weekend.

Welcome once again to our weekly

link up party!

Please link up your crafts or recipes made with beautiful, natural materials.  Share the crafty LOVE!!!!

Thanks so much to everyone for sharing their creativity!!

xo maureen & shanti

~ Creating A Birch Bark Vase ~

With the bursting beauty of summer here, we are perpetually filling vases with handfuls of wild flowers, tree blossoms at their peak and our garden lovelies as they unfold their sweet faces.

Perfect time for a new vase!

 To make these you need a glue gun, scissors, elastics and a jar or vase. 

To create...

Collect some birch bark 

* be sure never to take it from a living tree ~ there is usually plenty on the forest floor for the taking. *

Find a jar or vase to use.

Measure and cut your birch bark ~ just a bit taller than your jar and over lapping about an inch.

 Glue it together.

Add elastics to hold it together until the glue is dry.

Place the jar inside your birch bark round...

and enjoy filling it up with the beauty that surrounds you!

Be Well

~ Shanti ~ 

Pine Cone Flowers

Even with our gardens lush with fresh flowers ~ I just can't seem to get enough of them!

These little flowers were inspired by some big pine cones I found a the beach.

Easy to make. Pretty to look at.

Here is a how to... 

With garden shears cut the scales off a pine cone.

For the center flower, cut apart a small pine cone. Leave 2 or 3 sets of scales together and voila you have yourself a wee flower.

Cut a piece of felt into a circle.

Glue on your scales around the outside edge.

Glue on a second row of scales in the circle.

Glue your little flower in the center.

There you have it!

These little flowers can have many homes....

We glued some to hair clips, onto magnets for the fridge, put some into our fairy house. Thinking these would also make lovely gift toppers or tree ornaments. 

So many options!

In flower heaven

~ Shanti ~

All Spunk No Junk Link Up!!!

Welcome Beautiful Friends to our weekly link up...

Please link up your crafts below...it's a long weekend here in Canada...so we're keeping it simple today...but we'd LOVE if you'd share your creations with us! 

xo maureen & shanti

Fairies For Tea

FAIRYLAND
A Fairy's house stands in a wood, Midst fairy trees and flowers,
Where daisies sing like little birds
Between the sun and showers, And grasses whisper tiny things
About this world of ours.
Such flowers are there beside the way, Lilies and hollyhocks:
Blow off their stalks to tell the time
Tall dandelion clocks; While harebells ring an hourly chime
Like a wound music-box.
Some day shall we two try to find
This strange enchanted place?
Go hand in hand through flower-lit woods
Where living trees embrace--And suddenly, as in a dream, Behold a fairy's face!
~~Author Unknown.~~

We have been deeply immersed in fairyland over here. 

 We were inspired by The Magic Onions Fairy Garden Contest and decided to bring our own fairy garden to life! 

It has been wonderful. I love how easily I can lose myself in creating miniatures for our fairy friends (yes that is my hand pouring tea for the fairies ; ).

I laugh to myself when I catch myself more immersed than the girls ~ mama's time to play!

Here's one of our wee creations for our fairy garden...

 and a quick how to.

Gather

Acorns

Birch bark

Pine cone 

Small twig

Glue gun

Cut your twig for the spout.

Glue it on.

Cut a thin strip of birchbark and glue on for a handle.

(It helps to fold the handle a bit a both ends for the glueing)

Glue on your acorn cap lid.

Brew up some fairy tea!

For your itty bitty tea cups ~ cut out a small circle of birchbark.

Glue on an acorn cap.

Cut and glue on a birch bark strip handle.

After creating our tea set, we realized these fairies would surely appreciate a fairy flower snack.

So we created this little plate out of pine cone scales and an acorn cap.

We filled it with fresh flowers and invited the fairies to tea!

In Fairy Love

~ Shanti ~