mamaroots

knitting rainbows

After the holiday crafting season tappers off I have given myself the goal of learning to knit this upcoming winter season.  I just love yarn and knitted goodies too much not to give it a shot!

I have some lovely rainbow knitting needles to learn with and the inspiration of this lovely knit ball that I got from this Etsian last year.  I would love to be able to knit like this someday!  I found a couple patterns here and here to stick away once I get some learnin under my belt!

Till then I am making some holiday themed surprise yarn balls this weekend- all I can say is sugar mice!  Intrigued?  Join me this weekend and I will show you!

Tomorrow is the launch of the Winter Issue of Rhythm of the Home- be sure to watch for me there!

These beautiful knitting needles come from this wonderful Etsian-Rumpelfeltskin- love her stuff and shop name!

nutty give-away

Hoping you are all enjoying cracking some walnuts!  I wanted to share the winner of the secret walnut box- the winner is lucky 10!  Heather P. you are my winner- if you could e-mail me your addy we will send this little walnut off to you this week!

And in case you super duper enjoyed last month's Herbal Roots with black walnut.  It is a great resource for doing some natural learning with your kiddos.  I love having it as part of our home learning!  Each month you get a chance to win the next month's issue.  

I am pretty excited for the next issue- mmmm clove!  With all the holiday yumminess approaching this will be an wonderful herb to learn about!

How do you win?  Just leave a comment between now and Wed night at midnight and get entered for the drawing.  Bonus entry points for following myself and Kristine at Herbal Roots zine on facebook.

mamaroots

herbal roots zine

Best of luck!  Scamper on over to Herbal Roots this week also for a chance to win one of my wood squirrels!

are you nuts?

sooo. . . had a few folks ask me if I was going to do the whole Black Friday thing to which I said calmly- are you nuts??

I can't really even remember the last time I even attempted something like that,and it was probably for some craft supplies.  Now I did have to think twice when I saw my local yarn shop advertise a hefty sale for this morning, and they tried to tempt me more with cinnamon rolls, but something about sleeping in and not getting out of my jammies till after turkey leftovers for lunch seemed like a much better decision!

Making time is now in overdrive and we had fun making some sweet little gift boxes just right for hmm let's say:

*a marble or two

*mini wood acorn

*chocolate kiss or hard candy

*coin

*ring- hint for my hubby!

So here is a quick tutorial on how we did it:

1-find the biggest Jumbo walnuts that you can.  Experiment with roasting some in the oven and leaving some out.  We found this article on how to get clean halves.  Seemed to work pretty well, but maybe shorten the roast time a smidge so the shells don't become too hard- i.e. brittle.

2- open the walnuts along the seam, we actually did not use any of out nut crackers for this.  Clean out the nut meat inside and save for cooking or snacking.

3- Jasper used a sanding attachment on my dremel tool to smooth the inside roughness.

4- use a very small drill bit to create a hole on each side of each walnut shelf half.  I held the halves together to place my holes.  Drill slowly and patiently and be prepared for some of the shells to crack.

5- create a inside hinge by tying bakers twine inside, then use another piece of bakers twine, this time stringing through the holes so that your bow is tied on the outside so your gift receiver can see where to open the walnut.

6- fill and give!

Now a note on breakage, be prepared to have many cracks discards.  We would say started off with 15 nuts, and between the opening and hole drilling we ended up with 5 little surprise nut boxes- not too bad for odds.  Not sure if I am up to making these for all the boys classmates this year, but for the cousins maybe!

Best part- you still have the yummy walnut meat to make something delicious with.  Hope you like the tutorital!  And just for the heck of it I will give away one little surprise nut box that my boys and I made today, I will surprise you with what is inside!

Leave a comment between now and Sunday at midnight and you will be entered to win- good luck!

gratitude

Gratitude to all of you for sharing this space with me.  I was thankful for the simple things today, the simple joy of my family and food.

I was touched to see my grandma's china on the table and being able to eat.  I was not too sure I was going to be able to eat after a bout with the stomach flu this past week, but success!  

Hoping you all had some joy around your tables- cheers.

Turkey reading of a different sort

My favorite turkey day reading adventure for you this year??  Well I am so glad you asked (wink) it is acutally a clever, lovely book by Melissa Sweet called Ballons Over Broadway.  When you think of Thanksgiving often we think of turkey for some, football for some, thankfulness for all, and how about those ballons at the Macy's Day parade.

My NY sis has not gone to the parade yet, but maybe one day we will fly in for a visit and check it out!  I do enjoy watching the parade with the boys on turkey day though- it really is about the ballons!  I never really thought too much about the history of the ballons until this really fun book.

It is lovely to look at, interactive, historical, and just sweet.  The cool thing too is that there is an activity kit to go along with it on her site.  We set up a story picnic tonight and gave it a test run and gave multiple thumbs up.  

This would be a fun one to read, make some of the puppets, and have a puppet show before the parade this year- kuddos!  Don't forget to check out the replica NY newspaper ad in the very back of the book!  

dalas, trolls, and sugar mice, oh my!

I swear I am not Scandinavian, but heck if I am not full on inspired by some trolls and dalas!  I pick up an awful lot of Christmas craft books and thumb through, maybe pick up an idea of two and more often then not put it down.

And then there are some books that I can't resist- this is one.  Christmas Crafting In No Time by Clare Youngs has some super duper inspiring ideas with a Scandinavian slant to the design.  Two projects right off the bat- the red and white snowflake ornaments, and dear little sugar mice for St Nicholas shoes.  Good grief- can you really not love sugar mice.  I will let you know how it goes!  It is on my list!

There were no trolls in the book, but my own sketches of some holiday trolls are coming along thanks to some inspiration from John Bauer!  

Notice the dala horses on the cover- yep there are a couple dala themed projects in the book as well.  So if you get a chance a take a look at this book for some inspiration.  Want a good read with dalas and with trolls?  One of my favorite, saddly now out of print books Ride on the Red Mare's Back by Ursula Le Guin. I did find that there appear to be used copies available if you have a hankering for a copy.

There is an audio option to listen to from her site.  There is lots of music before so just enjoy around the first seven minutes till the story begins- you will love it!

lantern walking with trolls

I can't help it, I have to tweek the tradition Waldorf festivals to match us- I love the notion of taking a lantern walk through a dark night as we enter the dark time of the year.  It is reflective of the season and how we can sometimes struggle to keep our inner fire burning and literally keep warm in the cold months. 

It would not surprise you to hear also that I love the folklore of the troll mythology and folklore that is in our stories, particullarly from Norway, Sweden, and Scandinavia.  So this being our 3rd year of lantern walks we did a simple family walk up to our neighborhood park with lanterns and a dessert picnic.  And this park so happens to have a little trail that circles the park where we get to cross 3 bridges!  

So our Lantern Walk had a definite troll influence.  We talked about how the cold, dark months can often cause our troll natures to come out but that mom and dad would always love them and help them keep their warmth inside.  We enjoyed some troll nose print cookies and hot cider in a bench on the trail trying to find trolls that had turned into stones and trees before we came on home.

The winter is a fun season, but not without its challenges.  My oldest has waves of the blues that he gets that really brings out his inner troll, but we ebb and flow and continue to try and find a simple family activity that helps bring us a closer.  

A friendly family troll had some presents in his neck pouch for the boys, just a couple gold coins for their savings jars.  It is good to know there are other waldorf toymakers out there that are keen on trolls!  You should check out her lovely work.

Our troll noseprint cookies were inspired by Jan Brett's newest book out called Home for Christmas, I had the opportunity to do a booksigning with her many years ago and I get her newsletter still when her new books come out.  The new book is one of her many with trolls- I recommend it, all about how trolls lose their tails!  Since our noses are not quite a pointing and long as a troll we only made a couple with our noses!

Boys in bed, I talked hubby into watching the foreign mockumentary Troll Hunter with me.  This was at our well known True False Film Festival last year and was not well received, but I have to be honest, I thought it was a hoot- cracked me up.  It was a treat for this troll loving mama, even down to the Loganberry reference!  Not for kiddos though.  Now my brain is swimming with ideas I need to sketch for some holiday trolls for the shop!  Be on the watch, I have a feeling that one will show up as a give-away this week (hint hint)

Enjoy your Sunday- hope your lantern walks were good.  If nothing else, I highly recommend going out and have a dessert picnic by candlelight just for the heck of it!

not quite 11

in honor of 11.11.11 today I am showing some top favorite 11 shots from the past couple of weeks- 

1-beautiful handcrafted gnomes by Painting Pixie- perfect addition to our calendar this month

2-hippie mamas can be patriotic too

3-remembering

4-bugs

5-new fabric, new projects

6-eating at local favorite spots for lunch

7-admiring a growing love for animals my eldest has

8-warming up the lanterns for our walk tomorrow night

9-walks in the woods

10-the most beautiful things ever

11- well that is yet to be shown as I am heading out to a night of Glogg and crafting with my gals . . .

How about you?

 

like the sun

Glimmer, lantern glimmer

little stars a shimmer.

Over meadow, moor, and dale,

flitter flutter trolls in veil.

variation from original by M. Garff- Autumn Wynstones Press

oh the colors this time of year:  yellows, oranges, reds, just like the flicker of the flame.  I tracked down a lovely little broom for the boys to help with the sweeping and cleaning that we do in prep for the hunker down winter season.  So far they have been playing more indoor hockey than helping, but I am confident that they will get the subtle influence of this adorable broom!

Popcorn snacks and hot tea seem to pervade our afternoons as well.  It is what helps keep our spark and light alive inside of us.  Warm sweaters, stories and the start of the holiday crafting begins.

Also the upcoming preps of lantern walks is forefront in our thoughts also.  We have made the gammet of lanterns, paper mache, tissue paper on jars, etc.  This year I could not resist this beauty when I saw it.  It just so happens that it is made by another mama in my midwest state, so I felt it was destiny.  It is so beautiful.  It is a lace crochet pattern that is just a pretty to look at in the daylight as it is at night.  

How are your lantern preps coming along this year?  I am feeling a simple little walk in the park with my boys and for some reason it is developing a troll feeling to me this year!  I guess if Michaelmas has become Dragonmas for us, then there is no good reason why Martinmas can't become Trollmas right?  

memory

Time to set aside the spiders and pumpkins and enjoy a centerpiece ofrenda for Day of the Dead.  This year is was simply:

candle with skirt wearing calaveras

rooster linen to represent Oma's side of the family

last of the mums inside a antique (non family heirloom) bowl- with sugar skull for our ancestors

doiley made by my great grandma and namesake

horse shoe from my family farm

pictures of my grandparents, and my great grandma that actually has her writing on the back

I love how this today allows us to honor and not be scared of the dead- happy memory to all of you tonight as you share story of your loved ones gone.