I love these peepwool dolls created by Wisconsin-based artist Amy Arnold and available at Nonchalant Mom. At $220, rosie here is a bit out of my league, but such an expressive doll. These remind me quite a bit of the rough-hewn characters seen in folk art throughout the American South.
These preserves were a challenge. I’ve never done any canning before, but one word sums it up — hot. You boil the fruit, then you heat the jars, then you boil them. All this in the summer heat? We used fresh-picked blueberries and a flat of strawberries from the farmer’s market. I tried to make mine all natural so I skipped the pectin, used a small amount of sugar and added lemon rind. It didn’t gel quite like I wanted it to, so next time I will try to add some apple peel as this recipe suggests. The tops seem sealed, but I am skeptical so we will eat them quickly. A little runny, but yummy nonetheless. I think I’ll buy the proper equipment and try this again in a few weeks.
My five-year-old made this pinwheel mostly on her own. I helped attach it to the dowel rod with a paper clip and a couple of beads. She was very motivated and wanted it to look just like the picture in the instructions here. And by the way, trying to hammer a pin into a dowel rod as suggested in the instructions is ridiculously hard.
This is too easy! Am I doing something wrong? There is lots of soap-making advice out there, but here’s how I made my melt & pour soaps. I got all of my supplies from Brambleberry Soapmaking Supplies. I think having high quality ingredients is essential here. I packaged mine in glassine envelopes and plan to make some nice stickers for the back. Creature Comforts has another lovely way to package your soaps in pretty paper.
Supplies:
Here are the ingredients that I used: for the bee bar I used goat’s milk and honey bases, oatmeal milk & honey oil mixture, ginseng, and yellow coloring. For the blue bars I used aloe and white bases, spearmint eucalyptus fragrance, ginseng, and blue and green colorings.
Step #1: Cut amount of soap base(s) needed and melt in the microwave (try 30 seconds).
Step #2: Add color, fragrance, and any extracts one drop at a time until you get the desired effect.
Step #3: Carefully pour mixture into molds and tap mold gently to release bubbles. If any are on the top, you can spray with the alcohol (I didn’t have any around the house, so I had some tiny little bubbles on the bottom of my bars).
Step #4: Allow to dry for several hours then release from mold by gently bending and tapping. Now go give some soap to all your smelly friends!
Don’t have the time or inclination to make soap? Buy some from one of my favorite Etsy shops, 4th Ave Soap Co.
I love my children’s artwork, so I was thrilled that my five-year-old came home from summer camp with this mosaic bird house. I worked with her on the grouting and looks like we need to do some more cleaning, but it is a treasure! Great summer activity. Don’t throw away those broken dishes; save them for a project.
I used this ingenious idea from Angry Chicken to make mermaid tails for a couple of the girls’ dolls. After taking these photos I realized that yes, mermaids are weird and dolls in general are just kind of creepy (note zombie-like stare of doll pictured on the right).
But there was much excitement in the house about these. I showed my kids the photo from Angry Chicken and they were thrilled because they had one of the same dolls. I didn’t quite follow the instructions, opting for a lazier one-piece version with polyfill stuffing in the tail. I think the two large seashells on that one doll might be a bit much! Better than Barbie, I guess. I think little slip-on fairy wings would be another cute project for the dolls when the girls get tired of mermaids.
On another note, I just received these soap-making supplies from Brambleberry. I can’t wait to mix up some stuff and see what happens. The scents smell heavenly and I love the molds.
