February book picks!

Ok, the books have been picked so here is a teaser! Please check them out and read along!

Living Craft joy in Washington

As a teen, I can remember being so anxious for the mailman to bring my newest subscription to Teen or Seventeen magazine. At the time it felt like my lifeline to what was new and cool at the time....It gave me a window in the lives of other teens and ads for the latest and the greatest in fashion (which I obviously never listened to anyways! ha!).

In my early twenties, it was Cosmo.... the newest trends and styles... and the articles on "How to meet Mr Right" are almost laughable now... what was I thinking!? lol

As a newly married woman of 23, I can remember being anxious to get my newest Better Homes and Garden edition... again, thinking it was my view of what is new and cool in the way of cooking and keeping a house . Are we seeing a trend here? :) I moved quickly past that one and right on to the world of Martha Stewart! :)

Being a new mother a few years later, I found that same excitement when the mail carrier would deliver my Parents and Parenting magazines and thought they were just the greatest source of information about kids, the newest trends for toys and safety and helpful how-to sections for moms.... That worked for a little bit but then I discovered the fact that talking to other moms is a better education than any magazine will own up to! lol

I have since moved passed all of these magazines and honestly look back on them all with loving thoughts but have kind of burned myself out on their repetitive articles and rather lame creative ideas....




Which brings me to the newest periodical love of my life! Living Crafts magazine is definitely the new joy of getting mail! :) I literally can't wait for each edition (4 yearly) to come and feel much like a stalker when I know it is on it's way! lol  During our move, my summer copy got forwarded before I was able to get the address updated and I really thought I was going to go crazy waiting for it to catch up to me!!

This magazine is THE magazine for any Waldorf/nature inspired, green crafting family. It has articles that I even share with my girls... our favorite being one written by Fiona Duthie called "A sweater for a year" which took us thru the entire process of raising a sheep, sheering the wool, making the yarn and knitting the sweater! I just love to know the how and why about the everyday things we use without even giving credit to how they came to be. Appreciation of life and everything in it is key...

This magazine also has articles on story telling and how to incorporate it into the lives of the children around us and the puppets (which you know I am crazy about!) to go along with the stories!I find so much inspiration in these publications and want to shout it from the roof tops every chance I get! EVERYONE should be reading this magazine!

One of their newest endeavors is their  new blog! They always seem to be adding more and more ideas and tutorials for making amazing, high quality crafts that will last for generations!! My favorite new blog post is the next thing on my list to create! I have been wanting to make a set of post office items for the girls and this looks like a perfect gift for Valentine's day!

So please, go check out Living Crafts magazine, I just know you are going to love it as much as I do... your kids will thank you for it!

A mishap month

I don't know about you, but I am having trouble getting back into a routine this month and I'm sure you've noticed that this blog has been out of sink too! So... I thought for now, I would just share with you weekly about some of my favorite go-to craft books! What better way to start the new year than with inspiration right!?

Just because things are a bit crazy at our house with reorganizing (long story) and other school work plus some other unexpected issues of life, doesn't mean we aren't reading and crafting... just not as organized as I would like to be! And definately nothing worth sharing for all to see! lol So, this month's blog posts will be more about ideas than story topics and we'll hopefully get back to our regular schedule, if not a better one, in February!

And so... for this week's craft book I give you....

This is by far one of my favorite crafting books and has gotten so much use it's ridiculous!

Woolbur in WA

It was a Moms Night Out, way back when we were still in TX that I stumbled upon this book. You see, our MNO events always ended with a few of us going to our favorite Hastings store for coffee, book shopping and girl talk. Somehow we always ended up in the kids section, looking thru books. It figures, that on our one night "off", us homeschooling moms couldn't just shut it off and have some down time but instead surrounded ourselves with our favorite friends and children's books! Yes, I know... we are strange... but boy do I miss them...

Anyways, I found this book, about none other than a sheep that thinks outside the box (an idea that has plagued me my entire life!) and wool yarn/knitting! What could be better than that! I thought about that for months until I actually got it as a gift from my mom! lol I guess liked it enough to talk about it ! haha!

And, so.... on this cold winter day in the Pacific northwest, I urge you to go check out this book. Snuggle up with a warm cup of tea and enjoy... I'll be back later this week to show you what we've been up to!

Little Drummer Mouse... in Washington!

Where has this month gone?! I think it's going at warp speed or something! We have been reading so many amazing books lately and working on crafts for fun and for gifts.... but there just isn't enough time in the day to do it all! So... I'm FINALLY getting to my post from last week... I see a New Year's resolution in my future. Maybe someday I'll have this book blog more organized in posting. Thankyou all for sticking with us!!

I thought I would start off by introducing our own little barn mouse who we have effectionately named Templeton (we are big fans of Charlottes Web). He lives in our chicken coop and comes out occasionally for snacks when we are out there... Can't you just imagine him playing a little drum?

Last week's book, The Little Drummer Mouse by Mercer Meyer, has got to be one of my very favorite Christmas books out of our entire collect. I don't know if it's the story, the pictures or just simply the fact that it includes a mouse that has me intrigued. For anyone that knows me, it's no secret that I like rodents. I think that a good portion of all our favorite books have some sort of rodent in it whether it be a mouse, rat or chipmunk! And my holiday list of favorite books is no different! I think there is something about little children being able to relate well with someone little and dainty and it just adds a bit of wonder when you imagine what their lives are like with tiny homes made underground and other woodland friends to explore with ...this book seems to capture that feeling of being small and thinking that you don't have much to offer the world... only to find out that he really had so very much to offer...

So on to the crafts!

This one happened to be fairly simple but I like the fact that they had to take their time and that in the end it will be a real keepsake!

We started off with this manger set from Hobby Lobby...

And then set off to an afternoon of painting! We used water color paint so it would still show the detail of the wood.

Ta da!!

As I mentioned, we like books with rodents in them. I really don't try to seek them out, they just seem to find their way to us! lol

Mortimer's Christmas Manger is another one of my VERY favorites... I know it's almost Christmas but I really think this one is worth reading even if you can't get a hold of it until after the holidays have passed. I like the sweet pictures of course and the fact that it is about a little mouse is just perfect but what I like about it the most, is that the mouse is much like our children this time of year... at times only thinking about themselves. Sometimes it takes a wakeup call to realize what this season is really about and this book captures it beautifully! Definately a must read!



I have hopes of sharing more with you about the next book on our list...



.... but lets be realistic... I might not get there... lol

So incase I don't~ Let me wish you a VERY MERRY Christmas!

I thankyou all for joining us on our very bumpy start to a new adventure and look forward to smoother travels in the coming months! No matter how busy your days get... don't forget to take a break, snuggle up with your favorite little person and READ!!!

Cobwebs in Washington! lol

No, really... I did just clean my house! lol Perhaps that's why we don't have tinsel on our tree?

The funny thing about this book is that when Jackie and I were picking out our books to read this month we both picked books that had to do with spiders and Christmas... kinda odd I know, to have spiders and Christmas but even odder that we both had this sort of book on our list! lol

 Jackie picked Cobweb Christmas...

And I chose "Allie the Christmas Spider"  (Thanks to One Pink Fish!)

 So of course we figured that we'd make a spider for our tree too!!! We were in Montana when we did this so we got to head out to a bead store with Grandma and picked out some great ones for our spiders!!
 BUT, if you don't want to hunt down your own you can go HERE and get a kit sent right to your door!! :)

It didn't take me long to find some great tutorials online and away we went!!

Now, I have to warn you, this is more of a mom craft than a kid craft... the wires were hard to get just right so it was hard for the kiddos to do and they lost interest in watching me work on them but boy were they excited to have the finished product!! I imagine they will end up living with the fairies in the fairy house but for now they reside in our Christmas tree! It sounds like a good excuse to stop cleaning if you ask me... lol... perhaps we'll have tinsel on our tree come Christmas morning! :)

Christmas Magic in Washington

I'm sorry once again to say that I am late in posting this. Perhaps after the holidays I will get on a better schedule but until then please bare with me and keep coming back to check out the great books we are reading these days!!

For once I was actually going to be on time... we read the book last Monday night and started our craft on Tuesday. I thought for sure I was actually going to be early!!! That's what I get for thinking! lol I had seen an idea for this craft on a blog (sorry I can't remember which one!) and it was making a fall center piece...but after reading this book I thought it would work for making snowmen too!

I gathered all the materials....

And thought it thru enough to cut the bottom flat so it wouldnt roll....

So, in the spirit of my personal blog perceptions post I decided to still share this not so perfect craft with you....while the idea behind gluing beans all over these foam balls worked in my head.... in all actuality it SOO didn't... the girls tried and they tried but in the end we had about 10 beans on each snowman that actually took and more glue on our hands than I care to remember.... So, for now, this craft is sitting on top of my fridge gathering dust until I have time to attack them with a hot glue gun for round two of our "snowman" craft! lol

I know this isn't what you wanted to hear...you are looking for crafts you can actually do with your kiddos! lol  So we went back to the drawing board!! :)

Pictures to follow!