Matryoshka Doll Finished!! Finally!

I am embarrassed at how long it took me to complete this project!  The truth is, I made it much harder than it really had to be.  I thought I would color match and completely restore them to exactly how they originally looked.  Unfortunately, I don't think I even have the same kind of paint they used and matching aged color is next to impossible with acrylics (at least for me!). 

Anyway, when I finally decided that they weren't going to look exactly like they used to and what my friend really wanted was just to be able to let her kids play with them again, I got off my lazy high horse and finished them.

Before ^^^^

After ^^^^

Custom order Dolls from Etsy!

I wanted to share these dolls that I just finished!  A very groovy lady ordered them from me via etsy.  I made the little glasses out of wire and paper clay and glued them on.  I left out the side arms after failing miserably to attach them.  I think she still looks great!  I have thought about making glasses for my dolls before but this was my first attempt. 

Colorful Cups and Balls for Sorting -- Motor Development

My daughter is about to turn 3!!!  I am working on a few hand-made presents for her.  She loves color (what child doesn't!) and could use some more motor practice so I put together this little play set.  I ordered all the pieces separately and luckily, they fit together great!  All I did was paint them and I still need to put my wood rub on the cups. 

The little balls are 1/2" in diameter and the scoop is 3" long.  I got them all here but there are many different craft suppliers. 
Anyone have a favorite supplier?

Little Story-telling books!

I recently painted these little open books I had ordered a while back.  My idea was that these would be great for encouraging story-telling or to keep a story going.  I wrote things like, "Once there was a little boy who wanted nothing more than...," or, "And then, a very strange thing happened."   I wrote in them with a fine-tip calligrophay pen but I think a regular fine tip pen would work better.  I went to the craft store to get one but ther were really expensive!! 

Here is one of my clothespin dolls reading one of the books. 

I was inspired to make this blog post by Counting Coconuts blog post today about storytelling!

My Pyrography Chickadees were featured on Christy by Hand blog!!

i would really like to get into pyrography more!  ggrrr!

thanks, Christy, for featuring my birds along with other awesome pyrography goods from etsy!

Christy by Hand

Fun with Pretty Rocks

We went to the flea market on Sunday.  The only thing we bought were these beautiful crystals.  They were $2 for 2 scoops and I though Dot made a good choice for her one [inexpensive] item she could buy.  She was immediately intrigued by the large glass container full of these multi-colored bits.  She held the bag of them in her lap the whole ride home.

We didn't get around to playing with them until the next day but she has really enjoyed them!

Dot really liked to hear the sound they made when she poured them into this metal bowl.  We sorted them by color, talking about the different patterns, shades, shapes, textures.

We used these little plain wooden pill boxes I have all over the place to sort them and Dot's favorite part was pouring them out again into the metal bowl!

We also examined the sizes of the rocks.  We had some tiny tubes made for holding glitter which we filled with as many rocks as we could noting that some would only fit in at certain angles and some would get stuck.

We also did a little role-playing where I was the magic lizard from Alexander and the Wind-up Mouse and she had the task to find me a purple pebble.  There are only 4 or 5 amethyst stones in the whole lot so it was no easy task.  When she did find one I said, in my best magic lizard, "the moon is round, the pebble is found, what is your wish?"  And Dot said she wanted to become a lizard like me!  It was very sweet.  But now she wants me to talk lizard every time we play with these rocks...

I would really like to find a nice book with big pictures of rocks and minerals like these so we could find out what their names are and how they were made.

Mermania!!

Another rainy day so we looked to the blogs for some inspiration!  Thank-you Filthy Wizard for your incredible play-dough mermaid kingdom!  We were not nearly as ambitious but we made good use of those mermaid dolls I have been making!

Dot went from sitting in her chair to standing on her chair to sitting directly on the table top to play with our underwater mermaid castle.  The merfolk decided the roof was the best place for sleeping and all the maids climbed into the big shell for a nap.

Here is Dot sitting on the lap of a real mermaid ;)