Pencil holder

Another homemade birthday present for Kaleena this year is going to

 be this pencil holder with color pencils inside.

I just kind of made it up as I went along, and I think it came out really sweet. 

I thought I would embroider her name, or at least the first letter, 

but couldn't get it right so I ended up sewing on a felt letter instead.

I made it especially for the Lyra pencils, as they came in a tin box, and I wanted a different way to contain these wonderful pencils, they are so lovely, will last "forever" and deserve a special place to live.

I used a large piece of wool felt,  an 18" square, folded up the bottom, and pinned in one pencil at a time. 

( In hindsight, I will definitely cut at the bottom rather than fold the next time, 

as it ended up a little crooked )

I sewed it up with a gold metallic thread by hand, surely it would have been easier on a machine, however I still have not gotten the one in the basement out of hibernation:), and I like the simplicity and innocent look of a hand sewn piece. I added a blanket stitch around the edges, and also added Kaleena's name and a heart for decoration. 

I thought I might add a button to close, but instead decided on a simple leather string which I sewed on and wrapped around, simple and pretty.

~I hope you are having a lovely day~

Felted wool beads

I made felted wool beads today, it is the first part of a few birthday projects I have planned for Kaleena, who turns 7 next month. 

They turned out so pretty and I am looking forward to make more. perhaps some that are slightly bigger next time.

In case someone out there does not know how to make these, I will share how I did it. 

I used a bowl of hot water and one with cold. Wool roving, as always from here, some dish soap,  

a bar soap, and scissors.

I pulled out a long piece of wool from my bunch, about a yard long I'd say, and separated the fibers into wispy strands (on my first try I did not separate the fibers and ended up with a line going down the middle, creating little hearts instead of circles, cute but not what I was looking for)

Then I twisted it all up and dipped it in the hot water and added a bit of dish soap, then I squeezed and rubbed and rolled the fibers together between my hands, felting it to create a long snake, I alternated between the hot and cold water now and again to assist in the felting. This process took quite a bit of felting and rolling, until it turned into a lovely dreadlock looking snake.

Once I had a firm snake I cut it into little pieces with the scissors, this part is important so I realized, if you want nice even beads with no openings in them, you must make sure you cut them only as long as the width of the snake, this way it wont fold over on itself.

At this point I took them one at a time and dipped one side in a little water and rub that side ever so lightly on the bar of soap, and gently roll between my palms until it formed a perfect circle, then I left them in the sun to dry.

Here is my first successful batch

and here are all the ones I made today. I would like to make more, a whole big jar full, it does however take some time with all that rolling, so it will have to be a little at a time.

I also saw somewhere that if you want a more firm bead that does not shed, you can dip them for a moment into a mixture of half white school glue and half water, do this after they are already dry, and this should set them even further. You can of course also put them in the washer and dryer for more firmness, but I am quite happy with them as they are and will skip this step for now.

So pretty, love all those colors!

~A very happy monday evening to you all~

Rain coloring and a pentagon star lantern

We had a lot of rain this weekend and besides running around outside enjoying getting wet and splashing in the puddles and mud, we got out the water color paper and water soluble crayons.

Keenan got busy drawing and grating the crayons, which was very entertaining for him.

We then set the papers in the rain to see what we had created together with mother nature.

Once they were dry, we decided to make a lantern out them. I have been wanting to make the star lantern, the pentagon one, from Childhood Magic, and thought I should get to it before the wonderful tutorial is no longer there. I used the template here and drew it straight from the computer screen. It is perhaps a bit large, but for a first try I thought it would make it easier to work with.

I cut out 11 pentagons, then found the middle of each side, connected the dots to create yet another pentagon inside all 11 original pentagons. then folded down the sides, to create little stars inside the pentagons.

There is a lot of cutting, folding and and measuring in this project, but for me the most challenging part was the gluing, I tried three different kinds of glue and settled on the glue stick, still the flaps kept opening up once I moved on to the next flap, at the end I used clothes pins to hold down the top and bottom flaps.

Here are the two half s, each with 5 pentagons glued together.

And here is what it looked like all glued up, it came out a bit wobbly, the stars not quite even, still  lovely though. Next time I will use simple colored water paper, to make a more pleasing looking unlit lantern, yet at night you wouldn't know. It is such a beautiful little star.

The soft glowing light inside the fireplace is just a pleasure to behold.

I will most certainly be making more of these, different colors, different sizes, such a joy!!

~Happy monday to you all~