Felt Advent Calendar

Because we don't do chocolates, sweets, chemicals, colourants and all the other things that come with normal shop-bought advent calendars, I decided to make a calendar from felt that can be used again and again. I took all my felt scraps to make the pockets, glued on foam numbers I found at a sewing shop and used embroidery thread to sew around each pocket. It is delightfully colourful and each morning the boys rush through to get their card in there, which I have posted the night before. We made the cards up together and they range from; visiting a friend to a new chritmas story book, an outing, a picnic, a special game or stickers.

It has worked really well so far.

Felt Boxes at Craft group

So this was the outcome of our last craft group. These amazing little craft boxes can be used for anything. They are super easey to make. You need natural felt (it is thicker than synthetic felt) and material and embroidery thread and needle to complete this little project. For more info on making this and other material boxes with tutorials go to this link at whipup

Friendship

HAPPY THOUGHT

The world is so full

of a number of things,

I'm sure we should all

be as happy as kings.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Raw Hummus - Totally Divine!

Ok I am not in love with hummus , but THIS has changed me forever.

So this is what you need: uncoooked chickpeas (about a cup , Carotino Palm oil , garlic 2 cloves, himalayan rocksalt, cumin.

To get Carotino Palm oil click here.

1) Soak chickpeas for 24 hours (just cover with water and forget about them)

2) Rinse them off and sprout them for 1 - 2 days (this entails rinsing them off morning and night and leaving them in any glass jar) - so that they have the start of a little tail.

3) Blend with 6 Tablespoons of palm oil , garlic, 1/2 tsp cumin and rocksalt to taste.

ENJOY!!

Spring Necklaces

Ok we took some craft foam pages (I bought these from Merrypak) and I cut them into flowers.

We cut up some straws to thread inbetween.

We then used a blunt wool needle and string to sew these on.

I am inspired by Waldorf Crafts and sewing is so therapeutic for children.

Anyway they enjoyed them and it was really a quick and easy craft.

(If your children are older they can draw and cut out their own flowers)

Compost - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

So we bought this composter a while ago, it is make out of recycled plastic. We put our veggie and fruit scraps, tea bags, coffee grounds, pips and all in as well as all garden clippings and a smattering of hay to increase the "brown matter" and we wait for our beautiful compost. We bought this from Noordhoek Garden Emporium because we had to have something we could compost onto concrete. All is well and between our composter and recycling plastic, paper, cardboard, glass and tins we don't have alot left to go into our wheelie bin. Great!

Nature Prints and sewing.

Ok these are so fabulous looking and so so easy.

So you need : some cream material/ or white - any kind will do, a hammer, a piece of white paper, raffia or ribbon or string for handle and a twig.

So send the children into the garden to gather a few leaves and flowers. Then they come and place them on their square of material (mine were about 20cm square).

Lay the white paper over the top and hammer the flowers and leaves for a few minutes till you can feel they are flat.

Lift the paper and gently scrape remains off material. Viola. I stitched a line across top to make a seam and they threaded their stick through. Then I tied the handle on.