This little light...

Last week we gathered some lovely leaves from a friend's house, bought them home and flattened them under heavy books for a few hours (we still wanted them pliable to work with rather than dry and crispy) and then created some lanterns I've been wanting to do once we had some autumn leaves.

First up we pasted the leaves onto the jars. I then went on and pasted ripped up pieces of tissue paper onto my one for a different effect. We will locate some wire to attach around the tops.

Seedy Art

When I cut open our lovely pumpkin last week, Nathan and I scooped out the seeds, gave them a good wash, and dried them (and kept some for growing more pumpkins later in the year).

We then attempted to dye them. Not so successful. I tried two methods - one was using food colouring, but that didn't absorb. The other was using tempura powder paint mixed up - a little more colour (but really only external, not soaked in).

Was still fun, and off they went creating pictures with them...

Special spaces - the little touches

I love making little crafts for around the home. I'm not into stitching type crafts such as embroidery or cross stitch (although I was when I was in my early 20s), but like to try out different materials and crafts.

Large wall hanging in my dining room that I made about 8yrs ago and set paua pieces on it (perhaps a bit out of date, but I still like it)

String of bright-coloured felted balls I made a few years back that I have across one of our bedroom walls

Cute glass jars with dried twiggy/branch things in them

Woven kete that my mum made me

Danielle's paper bunting in her bedroom. It's a few years old now, but still adds colour and cheer to her room.

Crafting and recuperating...

A few weeks ago the kids and I gathered a range of stones from the beach in preparation for this craft. It was a gorgeous day and the kids spent the afternoon after school playing in the stream and sand before heading home to make dinner.

I had the flu earlier this week (first week of school holidays, which was a bit of a let-down for the kids) and it really had me out of action for one of the days (I haven't had anything like it since my early 20s when I recall not being able to get out of bed/off the couch and could only doze). Fortunately the kids are pretty self-sufficient and could get themselves food and entertain themselves all day (and then did the necessary chores like feeding/putting the chickens away, lighting the fire, and putting baked potatoes on for dinner so Simon to finish cooking when he got home from work), and I already had my Tuesday's blog post on what I'd been up to all written up lol. On one of my recovery days we decided to get the stones out and give this a go (despite the fact that it was a gorgeous Autumn day outside when we'd much rather be exporing and playing ... but oh well ... at least we got to sit in the sun!).

Hot Rocks with melted wax...

Instructions found here at 5 Orange Potatoes. We only had one minor burn, but yay for the Aloe Vera plant that lives on our outdoor table that was able to be used immediately.

Nature walking, collecting, constructing...

Yesterday, after school, we went down to a favourite beach and walking track and gathered a bunch of washed up twigs/shells/spinifix/leaves/flowers etc. The kids started to make plans for making up some playdough (we'd already planned to make some after school) and then constructing a mini-campsite with all the bits they'd collected.