The Night Before....

We celebrate Winter Solstice/Yule in our home and spend Christmas with extended family.  The night before our big celebration I finished up a doll I made for a dear friend of ours.  She is a bit of a collaboration.  I made the doll and her mother is sewing her clothes.  I think she turned out so sweet, I cannot wait until she is introduced to little Anelie.

After the littles went to bed I set up a wooden tree on their table and put their gits underneath of it.  We opted not to put up a real tree this year, I thought with a 2 year old and 1 year old it would be more of a hazard/hassle than it would be worth but am looking forward to the smell of pine needles in our home again next year.  I found the little wooden tree unfinished at our local craft store for $5.  I just watercolored it and sealed it with beeswax, I think it turned out quite lovely.

I also finished building our spiral for our Solstice Celebration with our friends on Saturday, but it was too dark to take any pictures, I'll post some before our actual celebration. 

Tomorrow when I wake up I will fill the house with candle light then wake the little ones up, we will open their presents, have a special breakfast of suncakes, followed by a little crafting of treats for our woodland friends, then take a nice walk in the woods to distribute them.    I hope everyone has a beautiful solstice!  I feel like a child again,  up way past by bedtime in anticiaption of our speical day tomorrow.

Corners of my Home

It is a cold, wet, grey and gloomy kind of day outside, the littles had gone down for their nap and I just finished tidying up the living room and snuggled up on the couch to knit, when I took a moment to admire how warm the seating area across the room looked at that moment.  Usually the blanket, dolls and toys on the fireplace are put away elsewhere, but they were left behind today and I rather liked the warmth they brought to the space.

Happy Birthday Kiera Raine

This weekend we celebrated Kiera's 2nd Birthday with  a Snow White themed party. What a magical day we had celebrating with friends, it was better attended than I had thought/ hoped but what do you when everyone has multiple children I think we ended up with 13 children total. 

 I made caramel apples using honey instead of sugar, an apple spice cake and my German Grandmother made an apple strudel, we served apple cider and apple spice tea, keeping with the apple theme.

I knitted her a white dress with red rose accents and ribbons, felted a matching birthday crown and made her a Snow White doll to match.

I also needle felted a Snow White mobile to hang above the picnic table.

The children took home their dwarf hats, a needle felted apple and these little medicine bags that had a peg doll forest spirit inside.  Each child choose their own bag hanging on the Camellia Tree.

We also wet felted magic rocks with the children this was a perfect activity to keep both the older children and little ones entertained.

 I wish I had taken a better photo of her cake, it was actually very simple, so simple I feel in love with it, it was a gluten free cake mix from Namaste foods, that I followed their instructions for creating apple spice cake (basically add apple sauce and grated apples) then baked cinnamon apples to trim the top with and then covered with a glaze.  I thought it was beautiful!

We concluded the party with a Snow White puppet show and lighting a few sparklers.  We could not have hoped for a more perfect day.