I could have possibly done better with the title of this post, but I didn’t.
Do you get the Land of Nod catalog? I do, despite never having purchased anything from them. The latest holiday catalog had some really cute garlands in it. I particularly liked the Goody Gumballs garlands, and thought they would be easy for my kids to make. And I know that I am not the only one who thought that those garlands could be replicated because a few days later my friend Summer called all excited about making some as well, not even knowing that I was thinking the same thing. She wants to make the Christmas Trees.
I cut a bunch of dyed wool roving into equal lengths to help my kids keep their “gumballs” somewhat uniform, and set them up to wet felt. That really didn’t work out though.
Later that day, we ended up switching to needle felting and that was much quicker and cleaner. I wanted to string the balls on hemp twine, but it was too difficult, and I really wanted Larkspur to be able to string the balls herself, so we switched to fingering weight brown yarn. The hemp twine would look better though.
I am a little defective in the “what to do with our craft (in this case garland) department, so we have a couple of these cute garlands hanging up now, but not necessarily in the best places. Jonny didn’t think I should highlight the yellow spray insulation around our new windows (he replaced most of our single pane windows last week-hooray!! Trim will be moved to cover the insulation….eventually I am sure. Then maybe we will paint it!) I hung the garland there anyway. Something about cute garlands makes me wish I had time to do some repainting.
Our traditional fresh advent wreath was looking pretty sad, so one night Jonny, Seth, and I sat up late cutting out leaves from wool blend felt. I sorted all the red buttons out of the button box for berries. Then I sewed a really simple wreath: topstitching, and stuffing with wool as I sewed, and just pinking the edges when I was finished. Larkspur had a great time hot gluing the leaves to the wreath. The boys finished it up and then added the red button “berries.” Everyone had a really good time putting it together.
Oh, and there was a picture of Larkspur smiling with the wreath around her neck, but Jonny didn’t like it. He thought she looked “too old” in it. Well, she’s nearly six after all!
And let’s see…Beatrix had a great time making a big mess with construction paper, scissors, and a glue stick today while I did math lessons. Sometimes I forget how much fun can be had with simple materials. I much prefer Beatrix with a glue stick in hand, to Beatrix attempting to needle felt.
Larkspur says that Advent is a good time for crafts. I think that over time she will realize that it’s the being together that is what is really making her happy. I am really trying to do my best to be present, and to plan extra things for us to do together.
Tomorrow is St. Nicholas day. There will be a few treats and new wool socks. My kids get really excited about new socks. We’ll read this book. We’ll also bake some cookies.
p.s. I have been buying wool roving, felt, and all sorts of crafty supplies from this shop for about ten years now. They even sell felt balls if you want to make a garland without having to make your own felt balls.
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