Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

The act of creating, in one form or another, preserves my sanity amongst the chaos of life. This explains why I always have more than one project going at a time as well as why my housework tends to fall behind. I enjoy seeing what others are working on and keeping calm with, too. What are you creating? What is keeping you going? Snap a picture and share it with the rest of us by leaving your link below.



With all the excitement over our mermice and Phoebe's Birthday book I couldn't help but pull out Phoebe's Sweater and cast on the Phoebe doll. Shhhh. Don't tell my girls! I am planning on making one for each of them as Christmas presents. I can't believe that I am actually thinking ahead this year. I am normally a 'last minute, get it in just under the wire' type of girl. Anyone else working on holiday gifts? I bet you guys already have some finished, don't you?! Mind sharing your organizational tips with me?

Don't forget to enter for your chance to win your own copy of Phoebe's Birthday here!

If you would like to link up and share your current works in progress (or finished works) please leave your link below. It can now be either to your specific blog post or Flickr photo. There are no rules, only that your link is current and something about a craft project (of any kind) you are working on. Don't forget that there is now a KCCO Flickr group for you to share your crafting photos at anytime.

Please remember to link back here so that others who may want to join KCCO can find us.

It's as simple as that. Remember your post can be from any day of the week, it doesn't have to be today. We all love feedback so if you have a moment please leave a comment on some of the KCCO posts you may visit. I know from my own experience just how much your comments really motivate me! Now please share and inspire us all!

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

An artist is born

I started doing craft and art projects with my girls quite early in their lives. They were both painting before they turned one, but for some reason I have been holding off with Baby L. Not really on purpose, he just didn't show as much interest as they did at the time. And to be honest, I just hadn't been able to find make the time to take on such an endeavor. I thought about all of this last week as I set up the girls painting session and decided that he should experience what he was missing out on. I knew it was going to be a big messy ordeal, but I didn't care, he needed it.



I set him up with some paper that was given to us and a cup of Glob paint. I mixed the Glob pigment with just a bit of water to make it more of a thick finger paint for him.



About five minutes into our painting session I realized my paper choice was not the wisest one, as the paper literally fell apart in his hands. I admit I was being stingy with our artist paper since it's a bit pricey but then seeing how this paper worked out I wished I just started out with the good stuff. The saying 'quality over quantity' really applies to everything, doesn't it?



Confused by his paper situation, Baby L then noticed his sisters painting with paintbrushes. He felt that he should have one, too. Why not?









Much happiness was had over this! I went ahead and switched out his paper, too.
The mess grew and grew but so did his smile! Times like this make me grateful for child friendly (and safe!) products like Glob so I needn't worry about what is on his skin.



It might be safe and all but I wouldn't take it that far Baby L!



An artist is born! There will be many more of these sessions in the future along side his sisters.

I put him in the tub afterwards and spent about a half hour scrubbing his highchair. While I normally get a bit irritated about 'extra work', this was worth every last second of it. This was just all about him and isn't the mess making at least half of the fun?!



And now for something completely different - My girls and I noticed thimbleberries (Rubus parviflorus) growing in our front yard. These are native plants unlike the Himalayan blackberries we enjoy picking. The girls like to refer to them as 'toilet paper plants' instead. Charming, isn't it? They learned from a hike awhile back that the leaves on a thimbleberry bush are referred to as 'nature's toilet paper'. Of course, that tidbit of information is what they hung on to. The berries are quite tasty, but few and far between, so you usually only get to sample one or two at a time. Our bush only had three, just enough for each of my children.



I asked C is I could snap a picture of the berry before she ate it. She squeezed her hand shut and gave me this. Apparently she thought I was asking for a smooshed berry.



This spider was hanging out over the thimbleberry plant. According to C it was watching us as we picked the berries. I snapped a picture of her spider friend in the hope of helping her with her fear of bugs. Maybe she can see the beauty in it this way...

Please enter for your chance to win Phoebe's Birthday and make your own mermouse like K and I did here. Thank you for all of your encouragement with our project together. It means the world to us both!! I am a bit behind tonight but I will be back during the week to catch up on questions for the previous posts.

An artist is born

K's sewing revealed (& Phoebe's Birthday giveaway!)

I think it's about time I reveal K's special project. There are many, many reasons why I love this little project of hers. Too many to name here but I'll give you my top two:

1.) It's K's first ever sewing project that she made all by herself from start to finish (plus - following instructions and me teaching her along the way which means bonus time together).
2.) The project is from a new favorite book of ours by a much loved author.



Where should I begin?

We found out last winter, I believe, that Joanna Johnson and her husband at Slate Falls Press were coming out with a new book entitled 'Phoebe's Birthday'. Their first book Phoebe's Sweater is without a doubt one of our all time favorite books (and the sweaters I knit from it are also my favorite knits), so I am sure you can imagine we were waiting with bated breath for the new one to come out.











I had been chatting back and forth with Joanna Johnson about the new book and then one day she posted a picture on her site of some of the projects from it. I instantly spotted the mermouse in one of them. It was hard to see though, so I was thinking it was a knitting pattern. Then Joanna shared with me that the new book had knitting AND sewing patterns in it, one of the sewing patterns being the mermouse. She said it was a simple pattern a child could make. Right then I knew exactly what K and I would be doing together over the summer. I ordered the suggested fabric in preparation and then anticipated Phoebe's Birthday arrival.




A crowd gathers

The book arrived in early July. The story, as well as the patterns, exceeded our high expectations (I look forward to making many more things from it). Phoebe learns to swim which is very timely for us. Reading it about twenty times the first day prompted K to work on some of her swimming fears. After that, K and I instantly got to work on her project. The way children learn is through imitation so I decided I would make a mermouse for C while K made her own. Because K is only 6 and we follow Steiner's teachings, I opted to have K hand sew her mermouse (sewing machines are not used in Waldorf teachings until later in the grades). This meant the project would take a bit longer than if we sewed by machine but that gave us extra Mama/K sewing time and I loved every single minute of it.

K worked ever so diligently on her mermouse from the moment we started. I have to say I truly enjoyed teaching her, there were quite a few new things for her to learn. She quickly became addicted and wanted to sew every chance she got; she is her Mama's daughter, after all. Our days became consumed with sewing our mermice (is that even a word?!). C was a little sad that she was too young to help with her mermouse so I made sure to include her and let her stuff her doll herself. After less than a week had passed, our projects were completed. Sewing seems to be one of K's hidden talents. Her mermouse came out much cuter than the one I made for C.

At the end of the pattern Joanna says to complete the mermouse with a child's shell bracelet around her neck as a necklace. So we brought our newly finished dolls to our local craft store and I let the girls loose to pick out their bracelets. They spent a good hour deliberating over their options. Once they came to a decision I told them each to pick one more so that they could have their own bracelets to match their dolls'.


In their bubble dresses

Phew! I was trying to keep this post short but this was such a big thing for us, I just can't seem to stop gabbing about it!



K is very proud of herself and her special doll,(Can't you just see it in her face?) but who can blame her?! I am pretty darn proud of her myself! She brings her mermouse everywhere and let's everyone know she made her all by herself. I do believe this doll will be a treasured heirloom, and rightfully so.









Now do I have all of you wanting to create a mermouse of your own with your child? Then I have some good news for you. Slate Falls Press is generously offering one of you very lucky readers your very own copy of Phoebe's Birthday!

Phoebe's Birthday tells the charming story of beloved Phoebe mouse, who spends the summer at the beach with her family and overcomes her fear of learning to swim as she prepares to celebrate a very special birthday.

The book includes a lovely set of photographs of the knitting and sewing patterns from the illustrated story, including Phoebe's Party Dress, Sun Tunic, Sun Romper, and Headwrap. It also includes sewing patterns for Phoebe's Spool Quilt and the Phoebe Mermouse Doll. This book is an heirloom gift for any child, especially one who is special in the life of a knitter.





For a chance to win, simply leave a comment on this post!
If you would like additional chances to win:

-Follow Slate Falls Press on twitter : https://twitter.com/joanna__johnson
-Like Slate Falls Press on Facebook : www.facebook.com/SlateFallsPress
-Post this giveaway to Facebook, Twitter, or your blog
-Check out Joanna's designs and tell us which is your favorite : www.ravelry.com/designers/joanna-johnson
-Let me know you are a dear follower of Frontier Dreams

and please make sure to come back and leave separate comments letting me know you've done so!

I will close comments Wednesday August 1st and announce the winner within this post that day. Please be sure to check back to see if you won!

Comments closed.

The winner is: Jes -
Love the Mermouse! The book sounds wonderful.

Congrats! Please contact me at farmergopi(at)yahoo (dot) com

Thank you Slate Falls Press for this incredible opportunity. Good luck everyone!!

K's sewing revealed (& Phoebe's Birthday giveaway!)

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

The act of creating, in one form or another, preserves my sanity amongst the chaos of life. This explains why I always have more than one project going at a time as well as why my housework tends to fall behind. I enjoy seeing what others are working on and keeping calm with, too. What are you creating? What is keeping you going? Snap a picture and share it with the rest of us by leaving your link below.



My cats always find my knitting and make it their little home. Am I the only one this happens to?

I had a deja vu moment as I was knitting K's rainbow. It reminded me all too well of my Lina mishap. I need to learn to pay more attention to my mistakes so I don't do re-live them. I tried K's gift on her after I finished the sleeve portion to see how it fit. It seemed perfect so I finished it up minus the picot trim at the end. I tried it on her again just to be sure and it was too snug. Not horribly too snug but snug enough that she wouldn't be able to wear layers underneath it, and layers are a must here. I ripped it back up to the sleeves and added two extra stitches under each arm as well as went up a needle size. Hopefully this does the trick. Must remember to have little ones try on their gifts multiple times, but it's tricky to do so. I try to keep the gifts a surprise, so to bewilder them a bit I always have both of them try on whatever it is I am making. This way they don't really know who it is for. So far this little trick works...

P.s - I hope to finally share K's project with all of you later in the week. Stay tuned! Also don't forget to enter for your chance to win a beautiful set of silk butterfly wings from Ziezo designs here.

If you would like to link up and share your current works in progress (or finished works) please leave your link below. It can now be either to your specific blog post or Flickr photo. There are no rules, only that your link is current and something about a craft project (of any kind) you are working on. Don't forget that there is now a KCCO Flickr group for you to share your crafting photos at anytime.

Please remember to link back here so that others who may want to join KCCO can find us.

It's as simple as that. Remember your post can be from any day of the week, it doesn't have to be today. We all love feedback so if you have a moment please leave a comment on some of the KCCO posts you may visit. I know from my own experience just how much your comments really motivate me! Now please share and inspire us all!

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

Berries to Bellies

Picture taken by Kevin





There has been a lot of blueberry picking going on around these parts. We just can't seem to get enough. I am beginning to wonder if it is physically possible to live off of them. Perhaps we'll test this...

Earlier in the week my children and I ventured out to a farm co-op in the process of converting over to biodynamic called Berries to Bellies. We had two of our favorite books in tow to keep everyone happy for the long ride (in case you were wondering - Blueberries for Sal and Peter in Blueberry Land). We found this treasure of a farm through a Waldorf teacher at the Micha-el school (Thank you, Kelly!). We loved every minute of picking there, even Baby L partook. The girls had more fun than I could have imagined playing 'Blueberries for Sal'. Their special Peter Rabbit bucket makes the best ku-plink, ku-plank, ku-plunk! Farmer Noah (as the girls called him) gave us nice lessons on biodynamics and picking the berries as well as places to explore on the farm (like the creek in the woods, the rye field, the honeybees, their animals and so much more). This farm was set up the exact way Kevin and I have envisioned our dream farm. I knew I would be bringing him back with us to see, and I did just a few days later! I wish you could all visit it with me, too - such beauty everywhere you look.I also wish the warmth of the sun could stay with me from those trips. Last week on our little mountain, the summer temperatures only got up to the high 60s. I am dreaming of winter knitting and back to wearing wool layers in this ever so cold house of ours. I actually found myself missing the heat and humidity we left in Virginia. *Jaw drop* Yeah, those are words I would have never thought would escape my lips. I am not a person who deals with the heat well at all. I guess the grass is always greener... right? Silly me.

Don't forget to enter for your chance to win a set of silk butterfly wings from Ziezo designs here.

Berries to Bellies

Sponsor Giveaway : Ziezo Designs

I am please to introduce you to one of my dear sponsors - Ziezo Designs. This shop has beautiful Waldorf inspired creations that any child (or adult!) would love.
They are celebrating their one year Etsy-versary this week (quite exciting), and I asked shop owner Andrea to tell us a bit more about herself and her inspiration.

.:Please join me in welcoming Andrea:.



My name is Andrea, and I am a mother to 3 and married to my best friend. We have been living in Nairobi, Kenya for nearly 5 years now.

Online I sell a selection of Waldorf-inspired toys such as wool-felt crowns, silk butterfly wings, silk play capes, upcycled wool bunting dolls, knot dolls, natural ornaments, as well as children’s aprons out of East African fabrics.

I created my first children’s kikoy apron as a gift for a little friend of my son’s as she was leaving Kenya with her family. It was a practical gift with a lot of symbolism from the place where she was born. My son liked it and wanted one for himself when he was baking, playing, or crafting. Next there were a couple I made as birthday gifts and eventually people approached me to make some for them. This let to the final push from an entrepreneurial friend, who insisted that I create a label and sell them. . . and this is how my first ‘ziezo’ product with an East African flair originated. I also added a selection of Waldorf inspired toys that I had been crafting for my little ones early on and the general idea for the ziezo Etsy shop was born. I finally opened my Etsy shop and on 18 July 2011 posted my first listings. It has now been open for a year and it has been lots of fun creating and sharing these creations with people worldwide.



My main inspiration comes from my children and their respectful, wondrous, and innocent view of the world and nature. Creating something that enhances their imagination and creativity is such fun.

By living in Africa I have learned to work with the resources I have at hand. I have found beautiful fleece and wool at little women’s cooperatives, and gorgeous pieces of East African fabric at local town shops. I also like to re-use fabric out of ‘old’ clothing, and you will for example find upcycled denim and wool in my creations.



The silk play capes are the newest product in my line. A little friend who likes to be a super hero was the inspiration for them. While you can easily knot a play silk to make a cape, the Velcro closure makes it easier for little ones to dress and undress themselves in their play.

Soon I also hope to introduce a yoga/pilates mat bag in the shop with an East African flair.

Thank you for sharing with us, Andrea!



Today Andrea is offering one of you lucky readers these beautiful rainbow butterfly wings!

"Let your children act out their fantasy play with these 100% silk butterfly wings in pastel rainbow tones. The silk is hand dyed in non-toxic professional grade dye. The wings are embellished with a yellow satin ribbon on the back, creating the illusion of the butterfly's body. Elastic shoulder- and wristbands make it comfortable and easy for children to dress and undress themselves. The pure silk cloth moves gracefully with the airflow when your child "flies" through the air..

This 'large' size fits most children 5 and over with an arm length of up to 45cm/17 3/4"."

Andrea is also offering Frontier Dreams readers a 20% discount on all purchases in the shop! Use the code FDZIEZO1 at checkout. This discount runs until July 31st.

For a chance to win the silk butterfly wings, simply leave a comment on this post!
If you would like additional chances to win:

-Visit Ziezo Designs and tell us what your favorite item is in her shop
-Like Ziezo Designs on Facebook : www.facebook.com/ziezoKenya
-Post this giveaway to Facebook, Twitter, or your blog
-Follow Andrea's blog : www.ziezoKenya.blogspot.com
-Let me know you are a dear follower of Frontier Dreams

and please make sure to come back and leave separate comments letting me know you've done so!

I will close comments Wednesday July 25th and announce the winner within this post that day. Please be sure to check back to see if you won!


The winner is:
Hannah · The bunting babies are more favorites!

Congrats!!!


Good luck!!

p.s - If you saw my last post you know I am having some issues with my commenting system. I am going to save all of your comments via e-mail just in case something does go haywire while this contest is running. Then I will draw a name from a hat instead of my usual online random number generator method. So have no fear - no matter what, your comment will be counted!

Sponsor Giveaway : Ziezo Designs

Whatcha say?

The giveaway post I mentioned yesterday will be coming up shortly but I am hoping some of you computer savvy readers might be able to help me out. I have been receiving quite a few e-mails about comments not going through and then all of my comments from the last post disappeared early this afternoon. My Intense Debate commenting system turned off somehow in that post and it reverted back to Blogger's commenting system. The same thing happened to my post on Monday. I tried contacting Intense Debate's support staff but of course they are on a break until Monday. Is this happening to anyone else? Do any of you have any idea as to how I can fix this issue? It's totally driving me bonkers!! Thank you in advance for any help!

Be back in just a bit.

Whatcha say?

Yet another addiction (& recipe!)

Utterly inspired by Forks over Knives (You can see the whole movie here for free) I foresee another change in our diet and another food post coming soon. (A couple from the past here and here.) In the meantime I thought I would share an addiction of ours - gomasio. It's a Japanese seasoning that we put on everything. It's incredibly healthy for you and super easy to make.

Macrobiotics teaches that gomasio, when used daily, is a natural remedy that strengthens our organism and prevents diseases. It is believed to improve the quality of the blood (making it less acidic), strengthen the nervous and immune systems, improve digestion, alleviate irregular menstruation, aid in the production of breast milk and relieve eye problems. Not to mention that sesame seeds are high in lecithin, a lipid that is a constituent of every cell in the body; the sheath around the brain, for example, contains lecithin. Sesame seeds also contain vitamins E, B, and F (fatty acids), plus calcium, iron, magnesium and trace minerals such as silicon, copper, chrome and 15 amino acids.

No wonder this super seasoning is served in our Waldorf school!


Steamed kale and tofu with gomasio over quinoa.(I believe this was K's plate by the way - hence the over abundance of gomasio. A food photographer, I am not!

Gomasio

1 cup sesame seeds
2 tsp sea salt

Rinse seeds well in a strainer. Let them dry and then place in a skillet on medium heat (do not add oil!). Shake the pan or stir while toasting for about 1 - 2 minutes. A slight popping sound will occur, and the aroma will be enticing. These toast quickly so be careful not to burn them!

Toast the sea salt in the same way you did the sesame seeds, in a dry skillet for a couple of minutes. And now for my little ones' favorite part: Grind the sesame seeds and sea salt together with your mortar and pestle. Store in a tightly closed jar in the pantry. Best if used within a week or so. They never last that long in our house, though!

Sprinkle it on steamed veggies, grains, salads, soups...the options are limitless! A favorite way for K, Baby L and I to use it is in a breakfast meal we created. We cook up some quinoa, add some fresh fruit, and a tiny bit of maple syrup to it then top it off with gomasio. It's a filling, sweet and savory start to our morning.



Come back tomorrow for a great giveaway from one of my sponsors!

Yet another addiction (& recipe!)