mamaroots

snakes for tea

High Tea this afternoon had us enjoying a little snake learning time after our snake crafting time in celebration of Chinese New Year and the Year of the Snake.  We enjoyed learning a few things we did not know about snakes and then also a spot of tea.  We also decided to create a little spot on the table for the next few days with a felt fortune cookie and some blank slips of paper to leave each other New Year fortunes!  

If you would like to make a snake of your own to explore some stories, I created another Once Upon a Table project for you.  Enjoy!

Download Once Upon a Table-Snake

 

Year of the Dragon-

Happy Chinese New Year!  I knew I had to do a little something special for my eldest who has and adores dragon energy!  I improvised the traditional Chinese Paper Dragons a little more yarn and felt style for some story table play!  I little bit of knowledge of a knitting tower is needed, but in case you don't have one and want to make this today the head of the dragon makes a nifty finger puppet too!

You can download this Once Upon a Table project below and print out the PDF- have fun today!  Don't forget that fortune cookies, dumplings, and hot tea make a great snack- that is what has been requested for an after school snack by my young dragon puppeteers! 

Download New Year Dragon

weaving

The needle, thread, fabric, yarn, and dust, dust, dust are weaving and flying throughtout the house.  The week before the holidays is a big crunch time for finishing up the merry making.  This is mixed in with some ebbing and flowing with some family health issues have taken me to place of understanding and growing in the way in which the universe is woven and my place as a mother.  

But I figured there are other last minute merry makers out there so I made a Once Upon Table Project for you this week.  If you enjoyed the Spider Ornament that I did for Rhythm of the Home, I thought you might like maybe just one more- this time with a little walnut influence.  

May the holidays weave peace and magic around your family.  I highly recommend the book The Christmas Spider's Miracle to go with this tutorial.  The spiders are so cute on the tree let me know how you like it!

Download Christmas Spider

welcome December!

Hello December old friend- one of my favorite crafty months- game on!  I could hardly wait to put up my new gnome from Painting Pixie that now graces my perpetual calendar on our ledge- one of my favorite morning rhythms.  The nature bowl which resides next to it is looking a lonely with just the greens, I think we will have to remedy that this week!

Today is also the launch for the winter issue of Rhythm of the Home, I hope you will make yourself a big cup o' tea and join me there today.  My contribution is of the spider type!  I was touched to find this tradion from the Ukraine of spiders in trees through the new book this winter The Christmas Spider's Miracle by Trinka Hakes Noble. 

Enjoy the tutorial and I will have another Christmas Spider projects and tutorials next week here for Once Upon a Table.  One way or another I will work through my arachnaphobias! 

One of the most magical moments of working on my submission was the day I wanted to photograph the tutorial was a lovely fall day and I thought I needed to find the perfect evergreen tree somewhere and then saw this evergreen shrub in my neighbor's yard.  When I went over it had beautiful webs all over made from just the most tiny little greenish yellow spider.  I took it as a sign and when I saw how beautiful the web was in the sunlight it was no wonder such a wonderful Ukraine folktale has evolved!

Don't forget to check the Rhythm of the Home blog also for lots of wonderful give-aways including one of my surprise yarn balls. 

Hope you have a wonderful beginning of your December- you don't even want to see the mess in my studio right now!

story crafting

How is your April ringing in so far?  Today it is full of sunshine, a breeze, and just a flurry of buds and flowers starting to pop.  

It seems as though winter has left- hopefully.  It was a quest to do some outside reading the led us to a little simple afternoon of story crafting.  

It was the little green and brown April pixie with bells on his collar that made me remember the Bell from Ursli story the reminded me that there was a pack of pretty bells I had picked up on Christmas clearance that led us to reading under the sun and friends making little strings of bells for ringing in the spring and scaring away the winter.

Story crafting can really be that spontaneous and simple.  I found the pack of bells, some yarn and did a simple crochet chain to loop the bell through.  After reading our April poem in honor of poetry month from Around the Year by Elsa Beskow, and reading Bell for Ursli I am tickled to hear the ringing right now of my boys and their neighbor friends as they play outside.

I think it took just a couple minutes for each little bell chain.  What a fun start to the month!  If my ears don't betray me it sounds like the bell play just changed to god/goddess play outside- they are trying to decide who gets to be Persephone!

moving closer

You know you are getting a little closer to Spring in these parts when you are shopping your local health foodie shop and you get in on the first batch of the most delicious goat cheese on the market!  Numero uno, premo, that's right #1.  See that little purple one on the lid- that means the girls are making milk again and my friends are making cheese again.  

And nothing says Mardi Gras like making those pancakes for Fat Tuesday/Shrove Tuesday.  It has become an annual tradition to make some pancakes, read The Pancake that Ran Away, and then eat some yummy cajun!  I snuck in some flax seed meal into the fluffy pancakes this year- I don't think they even noticed, but I like the little Omega boost they got!  

I am thinking of making a story set for this- for those of you that know the story, what do you think:

a pancake, a pancake and chicken, or as the boys vote- a pancake, chicken, dog, pig, goat, and horse- shew!  

Let me know what you think.  Don't forget that Once Upon A Table project to go with this is here for your pancake enjoyment!

September Rhythms

Oh really just one of my favorite months, okay mostly because it is the month my first born was born, but also because it is one of those cusp months- just enough of those summer hugs and a few sweet autumn kisses on the cheek!

I am super excited to be part the autumn issue of Rhythm of the Home- see if you can find me, it won't be hard- wink wink!  A little story, a little craft!  Some of my toymaker friends might even find yourselves in my pictures!

We are settling down into the rhythm of our days now that we are getting ready to enter the fall.  The boys are starting to request those late afternoon teas with books and our home time learning away from school.  Remember when I hinted at troll time coming soon?  Well it hit last weekend.  My story time at Root Children kicked off our upcoming weeks of Troll Time- stories, exploring the folklore, crafting, and even exploring Troll like behaviors in ourselves to work on.

To get it started right here is a new Once Upon a Table project for you!  Have fun exploring Troll Bridge, make a troll, make a bridge, and then settle down with a good story and cup of tea- my hint to make it fun add some green food color to the tea to make it trollesque!  Enjoy and many thanks to the folks at Rhythm of the Home magazine for making such a fun magazine!

Download Troll Bridge

 

 

Branch Bunny

 

Helping you hop right on into spring is my latest Once Upon a Table project for you, Branch Bunny!  If you have made branch gnomes in the past this little happy fella will be right up your alley!  

Download Branch Bunny

I am also so happy to finally bring you a couple new products to help you with all your story table fun.  In the shop are the Once Upon a Table all recycled binder to help keep your projects organized after you print them out, and also a Once Upon a Journal that I just finished up designing for you to right your children's stories that come from the projects- just in time for spring.  They are now available in the shop for sale. As always the projects are free from me to you, the pattern are not intended for re-sale but share as much as you like.  Hope you enjoy and have a great Friday!  I will be putting together a more extensive book list for Easter reading this weekend and have 2 fun giveaways to list tomorrow so be sure to check back!

 

 

cakes in the pan

I could not forget to make the boys some pancakes this afternoon for a snack after school.  Shrove Tuesday brought us some cakes, one of our favorite pancake stories with a buddy, and then daddy's famous yummy Mardi Gras food!  

 

 

 

  

 

 

I did cheat a little and break out the camping pancake mix instead of scratch but added some honey and they were tasty we did not even need syrup and those pancakes ran right into the mouths of those eager boys!  

There is still time for you to mix up a batch before bed and don't forget the Once Upon a Story Project that you can do with the sweet book The Pancake that Ran Away.

Lucky start

 I hope that January came in with joy for all of you.  I really enjoy continuing to be a mama teaching my boys and yet also being a mama who is always learning.  I learned over the past holiday season of mushrooms being good luck symbols for the new year- I knew I often have seen them in fairy/waldorf motifs but not actually heard of that.  So pretty interesting stuff I came across, especially with the red and white colors.  Well I hold mushrooms on pretty high regard, they are just plain tasty in my book- on my top 10 food list.  I thought I would do some searching and sure enough I finally found an old vintage postcard in my midwest parts here that shows that mushroom/new year's influence.  Notice the hats on these New Year's cuties?

 

 

Well, I thought on that note I would start off the New Year with a new Once Upon A Table project with you that is a secret mushroom.  You can write a fun start to a story tuck it inside for your kiddos to find and create the rest of the story, or maybe it is the start to a scavenger hunt.  Either way I hope you enjoy this project!  Happy story crafting!

Download Secret Mushroom