Kathreen Ricketson Memorial Fund

So saddened to hear of the tragic passing of Whip-Up & Action Pack Magazine founder Kathreen Ricketson & her partner Rob Shugg. They leave behind two children, daughter Otilija and son Orlando. My heart goes out to these precious children and their family.  I didn't know Kathreen personally, but felt in a way I knew her through her blog & weekly Whip-Up newsletter.  The love and enthusiasm she had for craft was infectious.

I'm not able to donate money at this time but I so want to do something to help, it seems only fitting to donate my craft.  I'm selling these four Angel Ornaments through my etsy shop.  All proceeds will go to the fund for Kathreen & Rob's children, Otilija & Orlando.

If it's in your heart to have these little ornaments and donate the proceeds please purchase them so we can do something to help together.  You can buy one or all of them, your choice.  Or if you would like to donate money directly, you can do that here, at Whip-Up.  I've also added a button to my sidebar which will direct you to the fund.

May this dear family always be united in their love.

Strawberry Birthday Ring Dolls

After making my strawberry felt decoration for our Birthday Ring, it made me want to make more strawberries! Tis, the season, right!?

I immediately thought of Strawberry Birthday dolls for my shop! 

I've actually been making quite a few Birthday Ring dolls after a customer request.  It's been so fun!   I love customer requests, they always push me in a direction I might not have gone without them.  So far I've made lots of princesses, ladybugs, bumblebees, butterflies and strawberries! You can check them all out here, at my MamaWestWind shop. 

There are times as a toy maker when I just can't stand the cuteness, & this is one of those times.  The strawberries are my favorite Birthday Ring dolls so far!  Visit them, here, at my shop. 

Until next time...

Ripping off the Label...

Please read this post as simply our experience, our journey in schooling and not a judgment call on any form of schooling.  I truly believe there are infinite ways & methods of learning both at home and in a school building.  There is no one right and perfect way.

School update:

So Michael did not win the lottery to get into the charter school here.  We are on a very long waiting list and honestly I don't know if I want him to get in at this point.  While it's a great school it would also mean a complete lifestyle change for us.  Michael recently told me, as we drove by a school very close to us, "I want to be free, Mom.".

Our homeschool journey has been a rough ride for me lately & I've been struggling with depression on that score. We started out homeschooling in the Waldorf tradition.  We did traditional Waldorf kindy and first grade (or as traditional as I so understood).  We started 2nd grade through first semester with a Waldorf curriculum. I love Waldorf!  If I had to go back and do school all over again a Waldorf school is what I would choose.  It's a beautiful way to learn.  However I am in constant struggle with keeping a school rhythm.  Again, I love Waldorf and it's not Waldorf that causes my struggle.  I would also struggle with keeping a school rhythm within any other home school curriculum.  Here's the issue,  I love spontaneity!  This is when learning feels alive & fun to me. I like going with the excitement of what's in front of us, learning about what we're passionate about.  Isn't that the way we really learn anyway?  We find something we're excited about and we learn it easily & naturally.  When I look back at my school years the only learning I really remember are the things I loved!  I remember art, cursive writing, creative writing, reading literature & exploring nature at home.  I have trouble remembering anything else & those are still the things I'm passionate about.  Well perhaps not the cursive writing but you know what I mean, creativity, art writing, those are the things I still love.

Our rhythm with meals and bedtime is constant, but everything in between is always in flux and I've found myself and my son not being happy to sit down and learn.  I've always said I'm a closet "unschooler" and I really think I am.  I think I'm allowing that girl out of the closet now.  Yet still the term "unschool" doesn't sit quite right either. 

So at this point I've dropped much of what we were doing.  We read and work on a Math book together some days.  I read to the boys at bed time, we devour the classics and will continue to do so.  Everyday my goal is to get up pray, read & do my "inner' spiritual work.  Lately my goal is to love being with my kids, to truly enjoy them. When it comes to Waldorf schooling I'm giving myself a hefty size breather!  I'm holding dearly to the aspects of Waldorf that I've learned, that I love & the rest I'm letting go.  Letting go is painful but I think it's the right thing for us right now.  As I let go, I then find myself naturally adding things back in.  No baking day but we have spontaneous baking all the time.  No penny whistle or recorder here but crafting & creative play everyday. No storytelling time yet story is continuous here.  Is this just how Waldorf looks in our home?

This post is a snapshot in the day and life of our schooling right now.  We may change, we may not.  Maybe Michael will get into that school at some point and we'll change our tune. I guess we'll see what comes our way.  I'm resisting the urge to label our "schooling" right now.  Why do I feel the urge to label?  When we label we then have a great big standard by which to measure (judge) ourselves with.  Are we Waldorf enough?  Are we unschooling correctly?  Where do we fit?  Yikes,  I just want to shed all of that right now.  For the time being I'm ripping off the label & seeing that we learn everyday, all day.

Thank you, as always, for listening. Please comment, I love to hear from you friends.

Until next time...

DIY, Felt Birthday Ring Decorations

I've been wanting a Birthday Ring for a long time now, I finally splurged and bought one! I found my ring at Joshua, on etsy. I love the Grimm's wooden decorations and I plan to buy a couple of them but mostly I think I will make our decorations. 

Owen's fourth Birthday is coming up, so I've started to think about what decorations would be meaningful for us.  I immediately thought of strawberries oddly enough.  Last year around this time, he had a dream and in his sleep he was saying, "sawberries, sawberries", over and over. When he woke up he asked for them with such urgency!  He gets so excited at the mere thought of strawberries & he often asks me to make a strawberry cake (something I've never made).  The other day I asked him if he wants to have a strawberry party with a strawberry cake.  He was thrilled at the idea & I'm thrilled too, I think I like strawberries just as much as he does.  Though the strawberries of my youth are the tiny sweet ones we used to pick ourselves!  Eeeek, love them!

So my first handmade birthday ring decoration, for Owen, is a strawberry.  I think that is the best thing about making your own decorations, you can make things you may not be able to find anywhere else. 

I've seen a couple of great posts on how to make your own decorations, this one at Rhythm of the Home, and this at Old Recipe for a New World.  Mine is a little different.  For the support I used wooden parts I can find at a Hobby store.  I use 3/4" x 5/8" Spools & 3/8" x 2 3/8" Tie Rack Pegs.  I glued the wooden parts together, using wood glue. Then I cut out the strawberry & leaves out of wool felt. I embroidered little strawberry seeds and then blanket stitched the two sides together over the wooden support. 

Lastly, I sewed the green leaves to the top, sewing the top closed as I went. Easy, peasy! It fits a little loosely, that doesn't bother me.  I think I may try a couple of wire support ones as well though.  More Birthday Ring decorations to come!

If you use this little tutorial to make your own Birthday Ring decorations please link back, I would love to see! 

Until next time...

To Motherhood!

To all the Mom's out there who work so hard, Happy Mother's Day!

Until next time...

Loving right now...

 

Nature: & little boys

 

 

Growing things: corn seedlings

 

 

Tomato  & basil

 

 

Beautifying the yard: slowly

 

 

Artwork: finally hung

 

 

Freshly cleaned studio: (except for the parts I give up on)

 

 

Spring things: in progress

 

 

New inspiration: Birthday ring dolls. 

 

Until next time...

 

 

Happy Earth Day!

I know, I know, I've been incommunicado lately.  You see I have Spring fever!  All I can think about is cleaning up our new yard & making it pretty.  At the moment it is far from pretty.  We're still working on that huge stump in the middle of the yard.  We cleared out some old xeriscape to make a garden bed.  We added city compost, (thank you Monica!) a little soil and planted.  Oh, the dreams contained in little seeds.  We planted sunflower, cucumber, zucchini, nasturtiums & a watermelon in that lovely open earthy space.  The next day we had the worst wind storm ever, so who knows if those seeds survived or where they flew too.  Such are the hopes & dreams of a gardener in the desert. We cleared out another patch of rocks to make a flower bed for Cannas , I really hope they take!  We also made up a new square foot garden bed and planted seeds and a few seedlings.  We hope to have lots of tomatoes, corn, beans, herbs, peppers, marigold, arugula, nasturtiums.  Again, we shall see.  My potted artichoke came back!  And the spincach seems to be happy. 

The boys and I have also been working on this year's fairy garden! (Or gnome garden as it's known here.)  Here's a post on last year's fairy garden. There's a glimpse of it above.  We're not yet finished so I'll save that for another day.

I managed to break through my Spring fever recently to make a few things for my neglected etsy shop. 

 

I'm excited to tell you about my Tulip Baby Birthday favors!  I have a group of 12 of them in the shop.  If you need a different amount please ask.  I also made a birthday prince and a couple of princesses.  They can fit into most birthday rings. Then a couple of Spring butterflies were in order.  One that can be made into a necklace or ornament.  They have all been a welcome distraction from my constant garden planning! 

Anyway, I'm here, alive, feverish!  Do you have Spring fever?  How is your garden growing? 

By the way, Happy Earth Day!  It's a beautiful day here in the sunny Southwest.  To celebrate, enjoy 10% off at my MamaWestWind shop with coupon code, "EARTHDAY".  I'll leave that code active until next Monday, April the 29th, 2013.

Off to do more yard work! Until next time... 

Easter Morning...

 

 

We had a fun Easter morn, well after a while.  Michael woke up at about five in the morning trying to see if the Easter bunny had come yet.  Since it was still dark I told him to go back to bed!  By some miracle he actually did.  Then later he woke me up crying to say that the Easter bunny had forgotten him. You see the Easter bunny decided that since Michael is 8 he could look a little harder for his basket this year.  The Easter bunny put Owen's basket on his dining room chair and Michael's inside the dining room cabinet with the door ajar.  When Michael didn't find his he assumed the worst!  I told him we should make a thorough search before assuming such a thing.  All was well after he found it!

It's our tradition to have a foiled chocolate Easter egg hunt and so as soon as they woke up they started snitching them.  Especially Owen who was just beyond thrilled!  We laughed over the funny places the Easter bunny had chosen.  All day long they were spying eggs that they had not found earlier.

In addition to chocolate and a couple small toys they each found a special book beneath their basket, The Story of the Rabbit Children and The Story of King Lion both by Sibylle von Olfers.  Owen has gotten quite a kick out of all the interesting foods that the animals bring King Lion. They also found a fun new toy, the beautiful bunny play set featured above.  I've been eying Eve's Little Earthlings etsy shop for awhile now and was thrilled to win this set in a giveaway!  Her work does not disappoint,  this toy is made so beautifully. Little bunny is stuffed so solidly that it has a pleasing weight to it.  And her sewing is so artful and detailed right down to the leaves and moss that decorates the bag.  Both the boys were thrilled and added the two felt bunnies we made last year to make a family. 

For breakfast we had boiled eggs and ham of course, along with some yummy half wheat cinnamon rolls.  I have a large roll recipe and so I make dinner rolls and cinnamon rolls out of the same bread batter.  For our dinner rolls I thought it would be fun to make these bunny shaped rolls.  Well, pulling them out of the oven after baking I thought hmmm, what a transformation!  My cute bunny rolls had turned into little half Venus of Willendorfs.  She had "risen"! Wouldn't these be great rolls to make for a blessing way?!  My boys didn't notice but me and my husband thought it was pretty funny!  I'm thinking if I want to try bunny rolls next year I'll use a much softer dough.  Well, that was our Easter.  Did you celebrate Easter?  How was it?  

Until next time...

My new Studio!

When I first began my MamaWestWind etsy business I had a couple of bags & a basket or two to store my supplies.  They lived on the floor next to the couch.  That was my studio space.  I often laid out my supplies on the living room carpet, sitting pretzel style to make dolls.  Then I often sat at our kitchen table and I graduated to having a pretty curio cabinet for storage.  At long last, I'm super excited to have a whole room for my MamaWestWind business!  Here's a tour of my new space.

Notice a drawer is missing on my desk.  Still haven't found it amongst our moving boxes!  I'm in love with the bright colors in this room.  It's a happy space.  I haven't had much time to make a mess yet in here.  So far I've tried to organize it as much as possible so I can be creative and efficient when I do get to work.

I've always adored this hot pink 50's style kitchen table I have to work on.  It used to be that I didn't have much space for it.  It sat, largely unused, in my garage at our last place. At the moment it holds my basket of in progress dolls.

I've had this coffee sack covered cork board for a long time, made from the lovely maya made tutorial.  I found the owl sack at a discount store we love.

This shelf used to be our kitchen shelf over the stove.  Now that we have a tile kitchen, I can't use it there, so I've given it new life in the studio.  And look, I used Pinterest inspiration! The jars of cotton yarn are for wrapping my dolls to mail.  There are slots in the top, so the yarn easily pulls out.

My husband found this shelf, actually 2 of them, at a yard sale a couple of years ago.  I just covered these cardboard boxes in coffee sacks to make them pretty.  More maya made inspiration. 

I've been wanting to do this for a long time but wasn't organized enough.  Here are my upcycled wrapping supplies!  I use upcycled linens, usually cotton or linen curtains, table cloths, pillow cases.  Linens that look worn & on their last leg. I thrift them, bring them home, wash them well and voila, new life as beautiful wrapping cloth.  The basket is filled with strips of cloth for using as ribbon. 

And here are some wrapped dolls on their way to new homes. Please come visit me at Natural Kids Team blog where I've written a post about my inspiration to open MamaWestWind.

Thanks so much for visiting friends!  Until next time...