These Beautiful Days

It has been simply gorgeous weather here these last few days, beautiful sunshine, and warm enough to venture outside without big, puffy coats. At least for a little while.

(I just can't just enough of the chickens lovely eggs, it's probably lucky I don't take a picture of them every day.) It was so nice to sit out in the sun and watch the girls cook away in their mud pie kitchen, I miss the ability to do so so much in the Winter.

While enjoying the fair weather, though, I can't help but wonder, and worry a bit. I don't remember any Winter as mild as this one has been. I still feel like we're working our way into the season, like it hasn't actually hit yet. Shouldn't it still look like this? (Last week.)

Aside from playing outside as much as possible, I've decided to attempt crochet again. My Mum taught me when I was young how to make chains, and a basic stitch, and... I have never made it any farther than that. I am starting out by reacquainting myself with what I already know, which is pretty much a simple scarf, and nothing more. I hope to move on from there, and figure out how to look at a pattern without it looking like an entirely different language. I began with a little blue scarf for Katalin, but when Kaia saw it, she wanted to know if I would make her one. For her Birthday. Which is in a couple days.

I quickly put Katalin's scarf on stand-by, and began working on one for Kaia, getting in a row or two whenever she is not looking. I'm using up the Bernat Mosaic Yarn - Psychedelic I used on Kaia's unicorn tail. I've gotten midway through, only to rip the whole thing out, so many times now that I've lost count. Eventually it became obvious that she would get either an imperfect scarf, or no scarf at all. Now I am just trying to do my best and roll with it. Wish me luck, please!

Ice Lanterns

I've been seeing ice lanterns kicking around the internet, and they are just so pretty! We had to try our own. When we went on our walk, we brought a basket and collected bits and pieces we thought would look nice encased in ice and lit from inside. When we got home, we laid them out on the kitchen floor and Kaia picked the flowers and berries and broke up sticks and separated everything into neat little piles.

We stacked together containers and jars, one smaller one inside one bigger one, and used expired tea light shells in the bottom between them. This maintains a gap underneath so that the ice lantern will have a bottom, and gave the top container something to rest on so it stayed centered. We weighted them down with rocks in the top container.

We filled the gap with water and Kaia selected bits from our piles to drop in.

We only had a few containers in the recycling to pilfer, so we ran out of containers while we still had lots of pine needles, twigs, flowers and berries. I got out our silicone castle bunt cake pan and we filled that up, too!

We left them outside overnight to freeze.

It took until evening the next day for them to finish freezing. We turned them up-side-down and poured hot water over them to loosen the ice from the containers and they popped right out.

We set tea lights in them and enjoyed their beauty. The dried flower petals give the ice a yellowed, "dirty" look in the photos, but in person they are distinct and lovely!

Wintry Clouds and Snowflakes

 

We made some snow-laden wintry clouds with which to adorn our door. We started by crayoning in some cloud shapes for Kaia to paint in. We used freezer paper (shiny side on the back) because it holds up to toddler painting so much better than regular paper. Kaia wanted the clouds to be blue and purple, so I gave her some of each and white as well.

I had put some asterisks on the clouds, and Kaia carefully painted each of those first. Then she started making her own shapes.

She lay shape on top of shape on top of shape until finally blending them all together with her hands. While the paint was still wet, she sprinkled them with "flake" glitter.

While Kaia was industriously working on the clouds, I messed around cutting out snowflakes, using what I have always thought of as, "the ice cream cone method", but I think is really, "the six point method". If you didn't learn these in grade school, there is a tutorial here. While we waited for them to dry, we went out and played in the snow

And came in and had hot chocolate, of course.

And then I cut the clouds out and we hung them on the door, snowflakes cascading down beneath them.

Oh, What a Little Sunshine Can Do

The temperatures outside may still be frigid

But when the sun shows her face

My heart flees the depths of Winter

And sings to the heartbeat of Spring

Casting shadows, large and small

Peeling back that flat paint of white and grey
Contrast is almost colour

The Earth warms
The snows curls in lazy ribbons off the barn rooves

The icicles, almost gone
Colour is unveiled 

The temperatures outside may still be frigid

But my heart is warm

Sparkling Snowballs to Hang

 What with all the holidays over and Winter still hanging around, we wanted some more decorations to add some shine to our home. We made these shimmering string balls, (or "snowballs",) to hang from the light over our dining table.

 

You will need:

• Kitchen Twine (or yarn, or even string...)
• White Glue
• Balloons
• Glitter
• Covered Work Surface (This gets pretty messy with a little one)
• Tub for Glue (like an old margarine tub or tupperware)
• Tray for glitter (paper plate, lid, etc...)
• Thread to Hang With

Gather your supplies and blow up some balloons. I only blew ours up part way so that they stayed as round as possible, and tied the knot far back on the balloon to eliminate most of its taper. In a tub, mix the white glue with water and blend well. We went about half and half.

Cut lengths of twine and dip them in the watered down glue.

Start wrapping the gluey twine around your balloons. Criss-cross and go all the way around. It should be tacky enough that it is easy to pin down your ends by wrapping over the start and tucking in the last of the twine. Your twine should stay where you put it relatively easily. If you find you're having a lot of trouble, add more glue to your mixture and dunk the twine again.

We tried at first to sprinkle the glitter over the balloon on the tray, but ended up dumping the glitter in and rolling the balloon in it. That worked much better.

Let dry at least a day, or until the glue has completely hardened. Then *pop* the balloons! This is always Kaia's favourite part. They peeled away slowly from the glue in a way that Kaia found absolutely fascinating. They looked really pretty with the balloons still in, too. I very nearly kept them that way to see how long they would last. :)

Tie your thread on and hang where you please!