This is a learning set of the metamorphosis life cycle. It includes all the stages of the moth, a pouch to put them in and wooden branch hook to hang it on. Also an information sheet.

This piece is made from hand gathered, windfall aspen and hand milled cedar. It is sealed with beeswax and natural oils.

I have found that if children are encouraged to develop their natural inclinations through their play, they develop a “can do “ attitude towards life and also take pride in their accomplishments. I think this is just as important for adults, to find creative processes which give them that sense of accomplishment and fulfillment .  I encourage this activity through my blog tutorials.

Wonderful “dishes” can readily be made with handtools out of seed pods such as acorn caps and gum nuts. This is a lovely adventure of gathering, making and using!

Developing the yard for natural habitat and making it a wondrous play space that children can help with is delightful!

In the Willodel shop you find ususual things, made to inspire, to delight and to learn from and with.  They embody the spirit and beauty of Nature, whimsy to stir the imagination and provoke creative play. They also invite  making things to go with the pieces themselves.  The materials, natural wood and bent twigs, hand made felt and wool naturally dyed wool, lovely artwork and wee folk, create a stage upon which stories and adventure can come to life. Everything you find in my shop are things that I love and have a great desire to share and inspire more of it’s kind.  The colors, the textures and the feel of it all is very important. It is as unique as the each of our souls are unique and as different as the individual story we each have to tell.

The Gypsy Wagon! Stirring romantic notions in us all! The Elves, the Wrens, the Gnomes~ they all want to come!

The wonderful people that I have met through my work enriches my life every way. Their joy and thoughts forever inspire and provoke me to make and share more!  Without them this work would not be the same. The interaction with the families that receive my pieces is part of the larger picture of the whole process. It is the great vision of the beautiful network of people embracing similar values and desires , very much strengthening the belief that what is truly good is still very safe in the hearts of many.  This contact inspires more and greater creations, just as each time a piece of my work travels to a new and loving home and spreads happiness and joy, it is a completion of a circle.  This, of course, confirms that I am doing exactly the right thing!  Thank you all and keep busy with all the wonderful things you aspire to do!

I am a great believer in the “play mat”. I think it creates a special space and place for the stirring of the imagination and ones own creative ideas. It also is an opportunity to work with wool and felt, which I love just as much as wood.

This is a project I am working on now, with home dyed natural felt, the inspiration being wild peony flowers, which are felted on the sides and the roof.

The Fairy Garden is our Summer project. It was started in a large rectangular cement mixing tub, so it can theoretically be moved in winter. Adding details such as a creek and a pond and many small things will be endless fun!

For more inspiration and information, please follow these links and thank you so much!

Other times, my eye may be caught by a work of art in a museum, such as a masterpiece by Amedeo Modigliani, in which I, again, may fall in love with the color scheme. One of my earlier dolls, another redhead, reveals this love of mine for working with soft yellows and browns.

Although I prefer working with contemporary styles, sometimes, especially after visiting an exhibition featuring historical fashion, I may get inspired to re-introduce a style from the past. The blue lace dress I recently made, for example, was inspired by a 19th-century French ball gown, and, in making it, I used the finest silk, lace, and delicate little pearls I could find to create the most authentic experience possible for the doll which had decided to grace a ballroom with her presence.

Sometimes, a character from a story may strike my imagination, such as in the case of Sarah from A Little Princess by Frances Burnett. In her white silk, pleated, low-waist dress, soft linen coat, and small hat, she envelops herself in elegance and grace so appropriate for a little princess.

Finally, I love finishing off monochromatic outfits with a bright dab of color. With her bright red beret to set off her black-and-white couture dress, this doll seems ready to join the casual strollers in the boulevards of Paris.

As a thank you to all of you, wonderful doll-makers and doll-lovers, I would like to offer a give-away of one of my tutorials/patterns to dress your doll. The winner will have the option of choosing between a Dress or a Hooded-coat pattern found in NobbyOrganics etsy shop, which will be sent via email as a pdf file. Both patterns are for a 18-20” doll and are easy to follow.

To enter, visit the shop, then come back here and leave a comment saying which of the two patterns is your favorite, along with a way for me to contact you if you win. The giveaway will run until 9:00 pm EST June 10, 2013. The winning comment will be selected using a random number generator, and announced here on Tuesday, June 11.

If you would like to learn more about my work please visit Petit Gosset Blog and FB Page! Thank you!

I’ve was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, a thyroid auto-immune disease, two and a half years ago and with it brought a whole host of issues including a leaky gut (really that came first, I just didn’t know it) and food intolerances. And guess what causes food intolerances? Yup, you guessed it, limiting your diet.

Eating the same thing often is not only boring, it’s not healthy! For the past two months I’ve been doing an elimination rotation diet. What that means is I don’t eat anything that I had become intolerant to—through testing I discovered I have intolerances to gluten, eggs, dairy, all nuts and sweet potatoes—and I don’t eat anything twice in a four day time frame. No more eating the same breakfast every day or the same lunch just because it’s easy and convenient.

I was eating super healthy, just not with enough variety. I have found the best way to add variety to my diet is through the flavor palate. It’s easy to rotate through a different protein and couple of veggies every meal, but I began to crave new flavor combinations as well.

Chives are an herb that I have grown in the past, but never really enjoyed. Suddenly I love them!

I’m an avid albeit fairly novice gardener, so first off, the crop I planted of them last year winterized so it was like a gardening bonus this spring. Booyah! Turns out that they are a perennial bulb like others in the onion and garlic family. Duh, I should have thought of that when I first planted them, but the bulb is so small it’s easy to miss. I love a plant that will winterize since here in NY that can be tough.

Second, the flower is equally yummy as the typical leaf that you normally see. It’s big and purple much like a standard Allium, just not quite that large. It’s a beautiful herb and a nice visual addition to the garden.

Third, they are super easy to grow organically. Literally plant and water. They don’t need a heavy dose of fertilizer, they need very little  maintenance and pests leave them alone. Cut them about 1-2″ above the ground when you harvest (only cut what you need at that time and you can continue to have some all season) and once they flower you can cut the plant way down in preparation for next year, or do what I do and just continue to harvest until you put the garden to bed for the winter. They can be thinned at any time, and should be every 2-3 years, so they are easy to thin and share with other herb gardeners.

The flavor is milder than green onions in my opinion and excellent in stir fry dishes, on veggies, eggs, chicken, beef or pork, soups of all kinds,  and they make a great addition to pretty much any salad. I use my kitchen sheers, cut the long leaves up and shred the flower for my salads, along with some thai basil, cilantro and dill. Yum.

Chives have been around for about 5,000 years originating in China. Adding them to your foods can lower blood pressure and aid in digestion. They can be frozen or freeze dried, but they don’t dehydrate well. Bummer too since I love to use my dehydrator on my herbs.

So I highly recommend this herb as both a tasty and beautiful addition to your garden this year. And please leave a comment and let me know what herbs you are loving right now, I’m always on the hunt for more to add to our repertoire!

Hi Natural kids blog readers! My name is Rebecca and I am owner/creator of Little River Dolls! I love making natural soft wool filled dolls for my son and his friends and my shop! It is so pleasurable to see the wee dolls come to life in my hands and each has such unique personalities that are easy to see. I love making them so much and I hope you can feel the love I have put into each and every one!

Recently I have been trying to find the perfect teacher gift for my son’s wonderful teachers at his Waldorf Kindergarten. At first I knitted a couple pairs of socks but then I felt that wasn’t personal enough for his main teacher so I found a pattern for a wonderful doll- but all made of wool and needle felted! I have needle felted a couple small things before for presents like hearts and pumpkins but never such a large one! But it came out just perfect, soft and warm and Waldorf-y, it will hopefully bring a smile to her! What kind of presents are you giving your teachers this year?

Living in Kenya provides a whole different perspective on the consumption society.  Recycling and reinvention of items are the matter of the day especially since new goods are generally very expensive.

Shopping in the piles of clothing

The solution for the average person here is to shop for used goods.  From toys, to shoes, to furniture, clothing, etc., basically everything you can find in a thrift shop in the Western World.  It is that world where most of the items here come from.  Kenya is among the largest recipients of used goods, especially clothing and cars.  I am sure that we all have seen containers placed in certain parts of large cities in Europe and the USA inviting us to throw in our unwanted clothes, shoes and even other items.  Most of what we would throw into these containers finds its way to Africa – and most often to Kenya.   The charities, who collect clothes in the containers sell the goods (=funds raised for the charity) to an intermediary, who then sorts and sells the goods to vendors here in East Africa.  The goods are packed in large bundles, which then find their way to the Mitumba (which literally translates into Bundle) markets across Kenya.  At a Mitumba market, the average person can pick up a nice outfit for a decent price.  Depending on the quality of the item, you can get a shirt for 10 Kenyan Shillings (US$ 0,11), or spend as much as 1000 Kenyan Shillings (US$ 11).  The latter items would be rather upmarket and brands of high recognition.

Impressions of Toi Market – A Mitumba Market in Nairobi

As a crafter the Mitumba market is ideal place for me to find nice fabrics and materials to upcycle and use in my creations.  For those who know my Etsy shop, you can immediately find a combination of traditional East African materials with upcycled materials.  The yoga mat carriers as well as the pencil rolls are a perfect example. My personal love for jeans as well as colourful kikoy is reflected  in those items.

Yoga Mat Carrier

Kikoy & Jeans Pencil Rolls

The ziezo Designs bunting baby dolls were born on the Mitumba Market by seeing a pile of wonderful wool jumpers, some felted, others not.  The felted wool was the perfect material to make lovely soft baby dolls children across the world would enjoy.

African Baby Bunting Dolls

On my most recent trip to the market I picked up some lovely flower fabrics in the form of a skirt, some pillow cases and a dress.  I have plans to create a fabric bunting with these great fabrics, a different take on my traditional bandanna buntings like these:

Reusable Bandanna Party Bunting

Keep your eyes on the ziezo Etsy shop!  Soon there will be more upcycled products made with the donations that started in the Western world, which were then commercially passed on to those shopping at the Mitumba markets.  It might actually be made out of something that you donated!

Interested in learning a little more about living in Kenya?  Visit my personal blog “ziezo – Crafting and Living in Kenya“

 With the Arrival of Spring, New Designs Break Ground

When I first met my husband we quickly made scavenging the local flea markets a favorite past time.  He’d routinely select some item from a vendor’s cache and ask me what I saw.  I’d respond shoe form, wrench, or whatever else the item happened to be.  “No,” he’d say.  “That’s what it is.  I want to know what it could be.”  Such a simple statement that became the cornerstone of my point of view in all my ensuing design challenges.

We live a pretty earth friendly life.  My husband spends a good part of the year chopping the wood we use to heat our home through the New England winters.  I manage the kitchen; cooking and baking our breads, snacks, meals with an emphatic keeping to organic and local ingredients.  We know our farmers.  We are fanatic recyclers.  We drive a hybrid.  So, it should come as no surprise that when I started my fiber and textile business my materials would continue in the vein in which we live our life.  The fabrics and yarn I work with are all organic, natural, fair trade, recycled, and/or re-purposed.  With a steady eye on quality of both my designs and my materials, my constant challenge is to eek out the best of possibilities from my cottons or woolens.  What shape will my collected treasures take next in their recycled evolution?

Quite honestly, I can’t even recall how I first started working with sweaters, but somehow I started collecting beautiful wool, cashmere, fair isle, aran—exquisite sweaters that for some reason or another were being discarded.  Sifting through thrift shops and rummage sales became a favorite activity.  And my husband’s first questions that he posed during our courtship became a constant echo.  What’s next?  What’s next?  And then one day designs started falling from mind’s eye to my pencil and paper to my cutting table.  Cashmere bunnies, and fair isle elephants all started to take shape.  Pigs and starfish and puppy dogs began to fill the studio.  My little gallery now hosts a community of little friends to join the community of our littlest treasures:  our kids.

This incredibly soft Cashmere Bunny satisfies her sweet tooth with Cupcakes, which are also made with bits and pieces of recycled sweaters.

A gentle elephant springs to life with cheery thanks to a wool fair isle sweater.

Everything starts with the washing and felting of the sweaters and very frequently some design detail in them–be it a placket or a seam–will inspire the Sweet Critter that it will become.

Jess Wrobel:  A lifelong creative type, my studio is filled with an enormity of wonders from the fiber world from which I create my knitwear and pattern designs and textile art pieces.  With my husband as my cohort, we reclaim, repurpose, and salvage old pieces into new functional home decor and furniture works.    I teach, and write, and enjoy meeting everyone in person at artisan shows. Please visit www.Jwrobel.com <http://www.Jwrobel.com>  or follow me on www.facebook.com/JwrobelStudio <http://www.facebook.com/JwrobelStudio>  to learn more.

Mothers Day for me , here in Tasmania was spent travelling to the south of the island to visit my two sons who attend University in the state’s capital Hobart

We travelled through the mists and autumn leaves and small villages

Hello!

I’m Pia from Nalina Puppen. We haven’t met yet – not officially at least. So, hello. It’s really nice to meet you. As this is our first time together, I thought I might share a little about Nalina, and I hope that you’ll connect with me, through comments or social media.

 Pia and little presents for customers

Nalina was born in 2008, when I was studying to be a Waldorf teacher. I started crafting little fairies and gnomes just because I enjoyed the handwork. Doing crafts back then wasn’t so popular as it is now. Knitting and crocheting were considered uncool, but for some reason people wanted to buy my little things. I didn’t understand why people would want to buy them, but I was happy they did. Looking back now, I still don’t understand it. Stitching was all off, products weren’t very unique, but they were made with lots of love. I guess that did it back then. In the years that followed I learned to make Waldorf dolls from my art and crafts teacher at Waldorf seminar, Ms. Thiesen. Watching her paint, draw, and create beautiful crafts with such precision and love was like a pinch of fairy dust to my life. To this day, every time I sit down to create a doll, gnome, fairy… I think of her.

Doll maker in making – from the first doll to the real Nalina Puppen doll

This memory helped me go through four years of trial and errors in pursuit of a perfect Nalina Puppen doll. Last year when I create my first doll that could properly sit my world stopped for just a minute. Long enough to know that was it. I came from someone who learned how to make a Waldorf doll to a doll maker – a proper one. I started believing in my work, and my dolls. And getting feedback from happy customers was like a happy pill for my heart.

 Nalina Puppen dolls

Though I can make every doll myself I enjoy that this is actually something I often do with my husband. In our crazy computer infested world (he works as senior developer and I as freelance web designer) we take time to be with each other, to talk, watch movies, and ground ourselves, crafting dolls. We were together at seminar for Waldorf teachers, and we are together after all those years, working and learning how to live simple natural life. If you want to know about my creative process as a crafter click here to read the post about it.

 Nalina Puppen boys

In search of that life we are moving to Germany in a month, hoping to settle, have a family, and enjoy living. We make a very limited number of dolls per month, making sure each is really well made and infused with all the love our family can hold. We are happy to see them finding new homes all over the world, and In our little country.

 Nalina Puppen gnomes

If you want to know more about our stumbling as expats please find me at Joie de vie blog.

Until next time, have fun!

Pia

Nalina Puppen on Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/nalinapuppen)

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Building raised beds is a bit of a time and money commitment. But they are so rewarding when you consider how much more produce you get.  We are hoping that the plants will be able to grow even deeper roots in the taller boxes.

In the photos you can see the boards of our old beds. They rotted because we used plain untreated wood.  I was a bit sad to see my old garden gate getting dismantled. But I am very happy about the new beds.  The new raised beds are made of redwood.

Of course, they are not treated with chemicals either, yet they are supposed to last a lifetime. The wood was a bit more expensive but hopefully we don’t have to rebuild again in five years.

We built a total of four boxes. It cost us about $300 (for planks of redwood, new fenceposts, and screws) and three days of labor. That includes the time it took to take out the old beds.

We covered one of the beds with old storm windows we found in our basement. Now the beds work like a miniature greenhouse. On warm days we take the windows off and let the sunshine warm the bed. During the last 3 winterstorms we closed the bed up to shield our small seedlings from the cold and ice.

The children had fun using power tools to help build them. I am looking forward to the spinach, Swiss chard, and Kale already growing. Check out our first little seedlings! I can’t wait to plant more stuff.

I am getting ready to be in a local art show. It’s been a while since I exhibited my work at Madison& Main gallery. It’s a wonderful artist coop, and if you are in the vicinity make sure you check it out. I figured my little garden fairy would go nicely with this post. Maybe she can sprinkle some magic fairy dust to make our plants grow faster. If you would like to meet this  sweet Garden Fairy in person you will find her after May 1rst at Madison & Main. Unfortunately I’ll have to miss the grand opening of this show since I’ll be traveling in Germany by then.