Of course, every holiday is an excuse for some great crafting. Ezra made valentines for his Aunt Regan and his Daddy. He helped me put together the valentines for his classmates. And, he made felted soap (from The Little Travelers tutorial) to give to each of his teachers.
You start with wool roving. I got mine at a fiber festival a couple years ago and have managed to keep the moths out:
Isn't it lovely? Though I realized after taking this picture that this particular roving is a wool/silk blend. I wasn't going to waste it on soap, so we used my turquoise and purple all alpaca wool roving, which worked well as the soaps we used are purple.You fill a bowl with warm water and add a little all natural soap- The Little Travelers suggests Dr. Bronner's and of course I was thrilled to oblige! Then you wrap each bar of soap (all natural bar soap works best, though we used glycerin), dunk it in the sudsy water and basically just wash your hands with it until the wool felts nicely. Young children will need help with this, though Ezra really loved it. It was a great way to fill an hour and get wet and sudsy!
You end up with something like this:
Let them dry a few days on parchment paper, then wrap them in butcher paper, parchment paper, or wax paper. The heart stickers I intended to use to hold the little packages closed wouldn't stick to the parchment paper, so I tied each with a little yarn bow. Ezra was very excited to give them out today.Of course, I had to steal some time late one night to make some Valentine's home decor:
And the scrap bird fabric from the baby quilt decided where it wants to be.
I love the felted soap idea and as I said earlier, I LOVE LOVE LOVE those birds!
ReplyDeleteSo, I haven't been with you all the way (just recently) and if I'm bringing up painful stuff, tell me to shove it, but... why aren't you going to be able to have any more kids? Did you have problems having Ezra?
You may not remember Adrienne Lima (itty bitty girl in college with us), but she has had a TON of issues with fertility, so I'm a tiny bit in the know. She had a problem with too many cysts and not enough eggs coming to maturity (did I spell that right). She took a ton of hormones and supplements and went to a specialist.
To make a long story short, she's pregnant with twins and in the hospital (where she's been for about a month), so they can keep her from giving birth too early. She's about 28 weeks now... so the little girl and boy should have a good chance of survival when they decide to let her have them.
It took her almost 2 1/2 years to get pregnant. I'm not sure how long you've been trying... but I think if she could get pregnant with all of her issues.. god knows it's possible.
Love you much and hope you either are able to conceive or are able to adopt and give a child a fantastic home, because you seem like an AMAZING mom. :)
I went ahead and published this, though it wouldn't let me edit out the name.
ReplyDeleteIt took us two years to get pregnant with our son. We then tried for three years to have another child. We have now been told by a myriad of doctors, including Ob/Gyn's, an endocrinologist, and a hematologist that the chances of my conceiving are very small. Of course, each of them also wants to impose a gillion medical necessities on me if we were to conceive at this point, making the entire project much too absurd. I do intend to address the subject more on the blog, but I generally tend toward the happier things, as I just think they are more interesting. ;)
I've been all about felting lately (just knit stuff so far), so I LOVE the felted soap and will have to try it with Katie. Is the idea that once it's finished, you use it as a soapy body scrubber thingy?
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the blog link on FB. I'd do crafty stuff all day if I could actually get paid for it, so I love seeing what other people do. And I feel you on the kid front, too, though on my end it's more about convincing my husband we need another. Katie turned 4 in August, and I desperately want her to have a sibling. We've never had any problem conceiving, but I did have a miscarriage in Feb/Mar. 2007, and to keep this short, I'll just say it was rough. So if I ever can talk Rob into #2, it sounds like I'd be considered high risk, so who knows what that does for my midwife, natural childbirth plans. But anyway. Nicole Strehl (Stoll) has PCOS as well and fought the whole thing with fertility specialists, drugs, etc. for two years before deciding to adopt...which took two more years. I know it can be heartbreaking, and I appreciate your candor and humor. :)
So much for this being short!