melody*made

{ Rainbow Jewel Tutorial }

This is the Rainbow Jewel tutorial for the fairy treasure hunt party we had for little Ryker.

I've made these "jewels" using different size glass jewels, but here I used the larger size glass jewel. You can find these glass pebbles readily available in local craft stores like Michaels, Jo-Anns, and AC Moore.

1) trace the glass pebble onto a plain paper.

2) draw a rainbow with any crayon type pencil (draw them smaller than you like as the glass will 'expand' the image)

3) cut out the circles (doesn't have to be exact;-) just smaller than the glass pebble

4) place glue or mod podge on the flat glass surface and place the drawn paper facing the glass

5) put another layer of mod podge over the paper (to seal the paper) and wait 24hours to dry completly

* these make sweet additions to your nature table or any type of doll or small playlands~

** you can also glue (or buy the sticky ones) a magnet in the back for cute magnets;-)

Click here to see the party using these jewels.

 

.: Fairy Treasure Hunt for 4th Birthday :.

I wanted to create a magical handmade party for my little one's fourth birthday. I knew that I wanted to incorporate storytelling and infuse wonder and magic to the party. One criteria was to find a way to give out handmade goodies to the children. So I came up with a fairy treasure hunt where the children received clues and messages from fairy friends, told by me. 

We walked around my little backyard and "found" small but special handmade treasures along the way. Each child knew that they were receiving something very special and embraced the whole magical experience. 

The Fairy Treasure Hunt began with needle felted wool bags under the "natural umbrellas". Each child was given a bag (My video tutorial for a similar bag is found here) to then continue collecting the treasures...

  

"...There was rain in the fairyland, but when it stopped and the sun shone its warmth, beautiful rainbow appreared~ Our fairy friends captured the rainbow in these jewels for you to keep!"

Then it was time to finally meet our fairy friends dancing in the trees~ They were dancing and waiting in rainbow of colors!

"Please take me with you so that we may play in your home, said the fairies..."

 

My little helper (9 year old Mason) passing out the fairies and also giving out "fairy invitations" from the fairy mailbox as the last stop to the treasure hunt. The "invitation" is for a birthday storytelling inside by the rainbow circle... (You can see a different bag design, which is a heart needle felted bag for the little sibling;-)

 

Here's a picture of all the "treasures" that the children found...

~ needle felted wool bag with twizzle. (My video tutorial for a similar bag is found here)

~ stamped "bug" wooden coin

~ rainbow jewel

~ silk fairy friend

~ fairy letter and envelope (bought these handmade at the local Waldorf school fair) 

~ silk parachute (it's used in this picture as a background;-)

 

Ryker LOVED his fourth birthday party... this mama is tired but oh so grateful and content;-)

Hope this gives you an idea and inspiration to create a natural and magical birthday party for your little one~

xoxo,

Melody

 

.: knitted goodies :.

 

.: Baby's environment :.

Asher at 10 months is very busy busy busy:-) He loves exploring the cupboards in the kitchen...taking out bowls and canteens. Oh, so much fun! I must get a picture next time when he's in the dishwasher! He get's so very excited when he sees the dishwasher door open! Oh, how he crawls over so quickly! Tee hee, it's actually quite entertaining to watch him light up when we're doing our usual thing of cooking and cleaning up.

I'm very relaxed about Asher exploring his environment. Almost nothing is off limits because I'm right there next to him. Well, nothing super sharp and dangerous or toxic like that, but you know what I mean;-) I don't limit him to "baby toys". He actually don't have much "toys". I've noticed that children, even babies, prefer real life objects over plastic pretend toys.

He's learning so much about his environment and about relationships... This is a perfect time to exchange things with them and play "please" and "thank you". He loves to hand over things to me and delights in the interaction so very much. 

 

{this moment}

.: our typical day :.

 

:: what I've been knitting ::

Knitted up some cozy longies for Asher...just in time for chilly weather:-) The last picture is Asher wearing his pants, all fuzzy at the knees.

You can see details on my Ravelry page and get the free pattern here.

 

:: homemade ::

Made mayonaise from scratch;-) I didn't plan on it, but I had some hardboiled eggs from yesterday and I didn't have any moyo for egg salad... So I looked up a recipe online and used my vitamix! Voila! It turned out so yummy~ How simple was that? FYI, I used garlic powder and grapeseed oil instead of what the recipe said. Super fast and delish~

So here's my lunch with the fresh sesame leaves from my friend's garden and low-carb tortilla from TJ's (I'm not on a diet, just like how it tastes;-) And, my 4 yr old, Ryker, lit the pretty candles. 

mmmmmm, life is indeed abundant and good! :-)

 

Tutorial::How to upcycle a baby sweater

So I had this tiny baby sweater for 13 years! Talk about hoarding! Ha:-) Well, it's a mighty cute little sweater from the Gap. However, the arms always felt a little too snug to put them easily on little tiny babies. And now that I really need to keep my little ones as warm as possible (we're not in CA anymore!), I wanted to repurpose it somehow.

Then I thought maybe I'd make some hand warmers for my 4yr old, and made these. I just sewed up the raw edge and tacked down between the thumb and the pointer. Well well well, what do you know! They fit me perfectly, thank you;-)

Then I made the body part into a hat. I left the buttons as is and just sewed a dome-like shape. All done! A brand new slouchy hat!

 

And then I had this hoodie...what can I do? Hmmmmm....

Sewed up one end to close it up into a little pouch. Added a twizzle handle and cut up some applique out of other felted sweater scrap to make a cute tree~ Ta da!!! Oh so cute! Asher liked it, too;-)

 

 

 

.: Pumpkins and Mother Earth :.

Take a look at my cute little autumn peeps~

Taking out old favorites and adding new handmade and found treasures to our nature table. This is truly my favorite season:-) Here's my autumn nature table from Los angeles, 3 years ago. You can see that iPhones pictures have come a long way! LOL

If you're wanting to needle felt some pumpkins yourself, here's a link to my popular video of the pumpkin tutorial.

I've been busy making new pumpkins as you can see! 

Oh, what do we have here? Mother earth is getting ready to put little root children to sleep very very soon~ Stay tuned! :-)