We made a new set of garden wish flags this past week, as part of our plan to increase the magic of our gardening space, and hung them in the backyard. These flags carry our wishes and hopes for the garden and for the gardening season. Let's hope they do the trick!
We first made garden wish flags a couple years ago (and blogged about them here) and absolutely loved them all season long. However I didn't hold on to them, figuring that they were best made fresh each year. We made a different kind last year, using the glue batik method. They were pretty awesome, but sadly we used the wrong kind of paint and they never made it out to the garden.
This year we went back to the good old fabric crayons for our wish flags.
The girls and I baked these cherry hand pies a few days ago. So, so good! I was reminded about hand pies when I came across Amy Karol's rhubarb hand pies on pinterest the other day. We've made blueberry hand pies (inspired by her Angry Chicken post), and I would so love to make the rhubarb ones just as soon as I see rhubarb for sale, but hadn't attempted a cherry version until now.
Heart & Stone Jewelry, one of my new blog sponsors, is offering a set of two women's rivet rings as a giveaway to one lucky winner.
The rivet rings are made to order by owner and jewelry designer, Julie Booras, out of recycled sterling silver. You can have your children's (or other loved one's) names stamped onto the rings or even a date or special message.
I came home with a bubble machine over the weekend. This is something I've thought about buying off and on for over two years now.
I'd tell myself, "How totally awesome and magical it would be to have bubbles wafting around us while we're hanging out outside. The kids would love it. Heck, I would love it."
And then I'd second guess myself by saying, "What?! The kids can't make their own bubbles? Why would I buy something to take away the pleasure of making their own bubbles?"
Basically I went back and forth along these lines for the last two years. And finally told myself, enough already, and just bought the darn bubble machine.
We've tried watercolor pencils before a few times and they've never worked well for us, but I recently ordered some watercolor crayons to try and we are all thoroughly impressed. Daphne, Maia, her friend Marlise, and I all spent much of the afternoon drawing with them yesterday and then painting over the drawings with water to create the watercolor effect.
They really work! And they are easy and fun to use.
I just came across this photo of a rainbow house that I drew when I was four. The segmentation and the assortment of colors reminded me of Maia's House of Color (one of my all-time favorites of hers). It's interesting to see the parallels in our artwork.
We received a box of wood bits and pieces in the mail a while back and Maia was immediately inspired by the different shapes and sizes to create a sculpture out of them. This is a box I ordered from Discount School Supply (another new product they are carrying; Yes, I'm a sucker for trying it all!), but you could totally just use regular old wood scraps (as we did for these wood sculptures) or pick out various interesting wood bits from the hardware store or craft store.
Okay, so I meant to post about these suncatchers before Easter since some of them are sort of Easter-y, but I guess it's still relevant since it's mostly about how to use washi tape for suncatchers.
Washi tape (at least the kind from Discount School Supply; can someone confirm if regular Japanese washi tape is the same?) is very thin and somewhat transparent and so works well for suncatchers in theory since it looks beautiful with the sun shining through.
We've been exploring and playing more with our fun washi tape—decorating Easter eggs (shown here) and making suncatchers (which I'll share soon).
The washi tape is so thin and somewhat transparent, that it lends itself well to decorating small, odd-shaped items such as eggs. Maia used it to create her large Eggbert family and I used it to fancify a few humble Easter eggs.
