Pressed Flower Ornaments

Pressed Flower Ornaments

This past summer I began a love affair with pressing flowers. I wasn't sure what I would do with them all, I just knew that come winter they would bring me joy to craft with. Now that we are in the midst of a real deep freeze, it was such a treat to peek into the books where they lay waiting and gently reveal the delicate little flowers I had collected. Perfect for creating these pressed flower ornaments! If you have some kicking around and want to create some too, here's how it goes...

You will need:

1 cup baking soda

1/2 cup corn starch

3/4 cup of warm water

rolling pin

round cookie cutter or cup for cutting your clay circles

pressed flowers

mod podge

paint brush

string

To begin:

Follow this tutorial to make the white clay. 

Cut out your clay with a cup or a round cookie cutter.

Poke a hole where your string can go through. 

 Bake at 100 degrees C for an hour. 

Choose your flower layouts.

Add a layer of mod podge to the front of your ornament and place your flower(s) on top.

Gently paint a layer of mod podge over top of the flower and ornament. 

Be sure to make sure your holes don't get clogged with mod podge and if they do poke it out with a needle.

String your ornament...

hang on your tree...

and sit back with something to sip, while you admire the little faces of summer looking back at you!

 Wishing all a peace & joy filled time of preparation for Christmas.

With love

Roving Angel

Each Christmas we have a family tradition of placing an angel on our tree, to represent each of our loved ones that have passed away. There has become a real reverence for this tradition with my daughters and they never seem to forget year to year, which angel represents which one of our loved ones. I enjoy having these little angels on the tree, reminding me of the connection with those we love who are no longer with us. 

This past year my dear friend lost her mother. I decided to create an angel for her tree, in honor of her loss and as a reminder of the love that lives on.

Here is how this little roving angel is made

To create you will need:

A wooden bead

Pipe cleaner

White or flesh colored roving

Colored roving

Sparkly string

Needle felting needle (not necessary but it helps)

To Begin:

For the head and arms: fold a pipe cleaner in half.  Attach wooden bead to the kink and bend each arm in the opposite direction. 

For the arms and hands: starting at about 1/2 inch from the end of one arm, wind a thin layer of roving onto the pipe cleaner, working towards the direction away from the head.

Once your roving holds on to the pipe cleaner, fold about 3/4 inch  of pipe cleaner back towards the direction of the head. Continue winding over this fold and towards the direction of the head.  Be sure to use flat layer of roving, so your hand looks nice and even. 

For the face and body base:  Make a hole in the middle of a  flat layer  of roving and pass the angel’s head through the hole.

If you want a smooth and nice “face” be careful with arranging your roving flatly and tightly on the wooden bead  Take two small strips of roving, tightly tie at the neck and the waist.

For the sleeves: wind a flat, thin layer  of roving starting at the cuffs and work in the direction towards the head on both sides.

To dress your angel: take new piece of roving about 7″ long. Make a hole in the middle and pass the angel’s head through the hole.  Fold the roving tightly over the shoulders and down around the body.

Use a small thin piece of roving to wrap around the angel’s waist. Spread the roving evenly around the white skirt.

For the hair: fold a piece of roving in half that is twice as long as you wish the angel’s hair to be and place on the angel’s head and needle felt it a bit to hold in place.

You may also want to braid three pieces of thin roving to create a braid and then needle felt that onto the hair. 

For the halo: twist a piece of pipe cleaner into a halo shape and wrap with a thin layer of roving.

Tuck it into the back of the hair and needle felt the hair around it to hold in place.

For the wings: take a 5 inch piece of white roving and lay flat. Tie a thin piece of white roving in the middle and then "fluff" out your wings to the shape you want. 

To tie on your wings: wrap the string around the waist, cross over in the back, come over the shoulders and cross in front. Then tie at the waist. Take the ends of your string and go behind the waist once again. Tie a knot and then use the remaining ends to create a loop to hang it with.

That's it! You now have an angel.

I found creating this with my dear friend and her loss in mind the whole time, felt like a special way to connect with her grief and to offer my love. 

May you have many angels around you in this season and always! 

With love

Advent Sticks

It's that time of year again…the year we meet as friends to assemble our Advent Sticks, 

(baskets…hangers).  

This year our good friend at the Knitty Gritty Homestead instigated the creative madness…

we had taken a year or two off, but after last night…never again!!!

There were 5 of us, so we each took on the task of creating by hand 3 items each 

(times 5…one for each person).  

The extra gaps we fill in with stickers…candy…coupons for "things to do"

As the handcrafted items were revealed there were squeals of JOY from the mums…

"ooooh"ing and "ahh"ing at each handmade goodie!

These are some of the goodies in our Advent Sticks this year!!! (other friends to participate were creative co horts Wabi-Sabi Wanderings &  Embracing the Now  & of course my co blogger Shanti!!)

Each goodie is lovingly wrapped in tissue paper…of all colours…

then if using a stick it gets tied on parcel by parcel..

This year some of the mums just put their parcels in a basket…each day the children get to pick one parcel to unwrap…oh goodness…our nature tables will be GORGEOUS!!!!

(We joke that we do this as much for us, as for the kids)

And here is a sample of the finished product…

I did mine on a coat hanger this year…I stretched it out and kept the hook on top…

makes it easy to hang somewhere in the house!  

After losing my mother earlier this year, I have to admit that I so look forward to creating new traditions with my family of friends…and keeping beautiful old traditions like this!

Wishing you all a beautiful weekend FULL of creativity and JOY!

Acorn Bird's Nest

The hunger for spring is in the air! We can't wait to feast our eyes on the return of the Robins, listen to their cheerful song and hopefully get a peek of sweet bright blue eggs nestled in a nest.

Until that day arrives we decided make some wee nests to bring spring into the home!

To craft these miniatures you will need
Acorn caps
Small beans (we used soy)
Moss
Glue gun and glue
Robin blue paint
String

To begin paint your beans blue
Tip ~ I discovered that by painting on tinfoil, it keeps the beans from sticking as they dry.

Next put a dab of glue inside your acorn top and add the moss

Add your eggs with a dab of glue on each

With your glue gun draw a fine line of glue across the bottom of the acorn and up the sides. Carefully place your string into the glue and tie at the top to hang.

Oh the magic in miniatures...

For the love of spring

~ Shanti ~ 

Sharing Some Toadstool Love!

I wanted to share this simple tutorial as an enchanted offering for those wee folk on your Christmas list ~ or for those young at heart, woodland lovers.

Toadstool Potato Print Tees!
(or bags, pillow cases, cards, baby clothes, gift boxes or wrappings...)

To make these you will need

Fabric paints

a potato 

paint brush

a tee shirt

To begin cut your potato in half and cut out "handles" on the top of your potato stamp (not absolutely necessary but it makes it easier to stamp with). 

Next cut/carve out your toadstool shapes ~ (the top and bottom are from separate pieces of potato).

    and then firmly press down on your shirt.

Place a piece of cardboard on the inside of the shirt to prevent  it from leaking through.

Blot the surface of your potato to dry up any moisture.

You can dip your toadstool cap into paint or (what I prefer) use a paint brush and paint on the color

Next stamp your stem.

Then with a paint brush carefully add your white dots and a little green grass if you like!

Voila!

In woodland love

~ Shanti ~ 

Cranberries...

Cranberries on an evergreen tree...  a little magic.

A simple, sweet ornament to make with your little ones is wire strung with cranberries.
After the stringing is done, the flexibility of the wire allows you to create shapes of all sorts!

  The girls seemed to love the simplicity and satisfaction of stringing, shaping and hanging.

 I enjoyed too. It has been wonderful to craft with them and slowly decorate our tree

 piece by piece ~ day by day.

So many way you can shape it and dress it...

Circular with a spinning Orange ...

Oranges make a sweet solo appearance too

 A birch bark center...

(If you want the branch in the center ~ Martha Stewart has the best craft punches for this!)

Hanging Hearts...

So many options! 

Enjoy.

 With Love

 ~ Shanti ~