The Rowdy Pea

acorn dolls at critical mass

I've spent most of my crafting time this month working on a big order for a Waldorf school in Massachusetts. Today was shipping day, followed by an ice cream outing to celebrate our hard work. The Etsy shop and all the crafting opportunities that have arisen because of it would not be possible without the tremendous amount of support and encouragement I get from my family and friends, especially Josh. He is so good about picking up extra slack around the house, and taking Ivo out for hours-on-end outings whenever I have a deadline to meet.  And they come home from their walks in the woods with pocketfuls of acorns almost every time. Ivo empties his pockets onto my work table and says, "Look what we found for your dolls. Hats!"  I'm so lucky to have my helpers. Josh even helped me think of some new ideas for the shop, which should be freshly stocked in the next few weeks or so. For now we are focusing on getting ready for our annual roadtrip to Petoskey to celebrate the Fourth of July the way Norman Rockwell intended. Cheers :) 

a book for papa

For Father's Day, Ivo and I made Josh a book about our recent fishing trip up north. Ivo dictated all of the text to me, and then I picked out the pictures and put the pages together. When I asked him what he wanted the title to be, he said "Moby Dick" because that's a grown-up book about fishing. So here are some excerpts from Moby Dick:

To create the text, I put a slide show of our fishing trip pictures on the computer and as we watched it together I asked Ivo to tell the story of our trip. Then I wrote down his words. This was a really fun project and very easy to make.  Ivo loves hearing his story, and Josh said it was his favorite present ever.  Here's the whole story of Moby Dick:

We are going fishing.

We bring my life jacket, the rowers, and a tackle box.

We bounce the oars. 

In the canoe the fish swim under my seat.

We are rowing.

Papa casts his line.

We see a turtle, a line, and a loon.

All the fishes that we caught is model.

Then we row back to the dock.

We feel happy. 

 

We tried to make the cover look like an old-timey leather bound edition (it looks better in person than in this picture). The binding is a pamphlet stitch, which is very easy and only requires a nail and some string. Here are some good directions for making a book with a pamphlet stitch in case you want to make your own story.

 

sometimes life really is a bowl of cherries

milkweed pod babies

I went back and fixed the links, so they should work now. Thanks for letting me know.

These milkweed pod babies were inspired by this amazing post from The Little Travelers.  I lovewhat she says about fostering connection, not collection. And that not only makes a lot of sense, but also rhymes. How completely perfect.

These babes were so simple to make. I just put a wooden bead on an inch or two of pipe cleaner and felted wool roving into a little bundle around the pipe cleaner. Then I added the acorn cap and a little more wool to make the milkweed pod cradle nice and soft. They look so sweet I almost wish they were real.

we got worms

One recent, raining morning Ivo said, "Let's build a wormery Mama."  He must have seen this somewhere, because he explained all about filling a big plastic bottle with sand and dirt and leaves and worms. So I did a google search and lo and behold : A pop bottle wormery.  Later that morning we went to the library and checked out An Earthworm's Life which was perfect. There's just a sentence or two on each page and the illustrations are actually quite beautiful (which I'm sure is not easy when your book is about worms).  Ivo's favorite part was when a boy finds a worm "stranded" on a basketball court and gently moves him to a garden. That small act of stewardship really inspired him, and now he likes to scan every sidewalk for worms to help.

 

 

We love to watch our worms. In a few days they will be back in the woods, but for now they are sparking lots of questions and creative thinking. Yesterday Ivo asked me, "Do worms breathe dirt? Papa said the fish breathe water. So do the worms breathe dirt?" I thought that was very clever. And I got a chance to be clever too. Today I picked up a dead junebug from our laundry room floor and my neighbor said, "Ew! I can't believe you can touch that." I said, "Hey you're talking to the lady with a pop bottle full of worms on her dining room table."  She'd heard all about the wormery from Ivo so that sent us both into giggles.

inspired by old glory

New in the shop, just in time for the Fourth of July . . .

These red, white, and blue fairy bell rings were my mom's idea.  At last year's Fourth of July parade Ivo and his cousin Quinn both had little American flags which they brandished with such exuberance, I think we all got poked a few times. Those little flag sticks are pointy!  These will be just as much fun and require a lot less supervision. Good idea, Nana!

birthday goodies

We put together this little bundle of felty goodness to help celebrate our friend Abebech's second birthday. Her party was on Sunday and of all the rotten days to get sick . . . poor Ivo was so disappointed to miss out on the fun. I'd been telling him for a few days that after lunch on Sunday we would walk over to Abby's party, so when he saw Josh and I warming up soup and making sandwiches, he started trying to convince us that he was well. "Hey, mama, *sneeze* Hey mama I'm not sick any-*sneeze* anymore."  And my favorite, with his hand on his forehead, "Hey Papa, my brain is cold, I can go to the party." We ended up walking over with Ivo in the jogging stroller to deliver the birthday girl's present, and wouldn't you know it, the party was in full swing and she was sound asleep with a cold and sniffles. Her mom was so sweet. She had a birthday bag for Ivo with a party favor, and the craft project (a clothespin doll), and even a hat and noisemaker AND a piece of cake. Ivo called it his "take home party." 

Here is a picture of our homemade gift bag. This is just two pieces of scrapbook paper wrapped around a box, like a present, but with only three sides taped closed.  Then slide the box out through the open end, and voila! A gift bag. Ribbon handles add a pretty touch if you have some ribbon lying around. The pretty paper and ribbon can be used by the recipient for arts and crafts, or the bag can be reused, or recycled.

pictures from our weekend