Winter Break : Things to Do & Make!

And don't think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter.
It's quiet, but the roots are down there riotous.  - Rumi


It's officially Winter Break in our neck of the woods!  Here's some crafty goodness to keep your creative fires aflame during the holiday season.   I will now be going into winter hibernation, researching new ideas for MGA Summer and working on my own creations!  I'll be back and soon we will kick off Springtime at Maker Faire NoVA 2017!!!  Until we meet again, wishing you and yours peace, comfort & joy in the coming year!

Made so & rooted by love,

Wendy

Try making giant paper snowflakes out of white wrapping paper or use the wrapping paper from you gifts after you open them.  

There's a whole bunch of wonderful snowflake patterns that you can download right HERE!!!
  


Some fun things to do with paper snowflakes that I gathered from the internet...make a mobile, use them as gift toppers or as I did for our solstice party one year - straw toppers...

"How full of the creative genius is the air in which these are generated!  I should hardly admire more if real stars fell and lodged on my coat.  Nature is so full of genius, so full of divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand." 

- Throeau



























 For some Winter Solstice Science, try making these crystal coated pine cones!  Directions HERE. 

Wish upon a star!  Write your wishes on scraps of wrapping paper and fold them into lovely little stars!  

"We have only this moment,

 sparkling like a star in our hand 

and melting like a snowflake." - Francis Bacon

Add paper stars or snowflakes to your string lights with a hole puncher for a celestial garland.

The universe 

and the light of the stars 

come through me." - Rumi

 

Bring some of the outdoors indoors with bedside twigs and sprigs.

 Make your own Antler Ornaments with clay...

"I'm putting up antlers
like taproots into the sky
to draw down the power
of heaven"

- Robert Moss

Download the lovely freebies from on of my favorite illustrators, Penelope Dullaghan

 

Yarn bomb some twigs and fill your vase with something wooly and wintry...


 

Photo by Aesthetic Outburst

Try this charming napkin fold... 



and make yourself some tree cookies...

Tree Cookies from BH&G

I made mine with chocolate dough!

Make a snow globe!  Add an LED lid for a wintry nightlight.

Anthro knock-offs I made with my son.

 

Make wool snowballs. for indoor snowball fights!  I made these for my son when he was a toddler.  Just wrap wool roving around a wiffle golf ball then use the same method that you use when making your felted soaps. Unlike the soap, these can be thrown in the dryer before cutting them from the stocking!

Force bulbs for Springtime in Winter...

and enjoy the season!

"You are the fearless guardian
of Divine Light.
So come, return to the root of the the root
of your own soul."

- Rumi

Week Four : Now Is the Season

Now is the time for the world to know
That every thought and action is sacred.
This is the time
For you to deeply compute the impossibility
That there is anything
But Grace.
Now is the season to know
That everything you do
Is sacred.  - Hafiz

Today was the last class of 2016 and I could hardly believe it.  We began the morning sipping hot cocoa from the mugs that we created and catching up on the past two weeks.  Once we settled in we started our first craft, Faux mercury glass lanterns.  If you wish to make more at home, here's a tutorial that I found on the web.

While the lanterns dried, we took a refreshing hike. 

 

One of our favorite places in the forest is an enchanted rocky ridge that reminds me of a castle.  You will know the place by these landmarks:  The ear of the tree,  the library of stones, and the heart of the rock.

When we returned we began working on our second project, the Flower Child Scarf.  I saw this scarf  (photo left) in Anthropologie a few years ago and traced it back to a yarn shop in NY called Loopy Mango where I purchased the wool to make my own.  I received many compliments on the scarf so I figured I would teach the girls how to make it too.

( In case you wish to make more, but forget how to make it, Loopy offers a video tutorial here.  The scarf requires 9-10 yards of super fat yarn.   For the tassels you will need approx 22 yards of light to medium weight yarn. )

Meanwhile...the morning session made their potion bottle talisman necklaces and filled them with edible glitter.  Some chose to replace the cork with a twig which made it all the more magical.

We closed our wintry workshop with a special wish ceremony!  The girls wrote their wishes onto flying wish paper.  The wishes could be for themselves, for the earth, or for humanity.  There are no rules to wishing.  Once the wishes were written, we lit them aflame so our wishes could fly into the air.  We then catch the ash and either blow the ash into the wind or save it.  You can find Flying Wish paper locally here or from the manufacturer here.

(My apologies for the compression of this video, 
will try to re-upload later. )


We ended the day with S'mores!

Dear Mighty Girls,

I can't believe our 2016 wintry session has come to an end.   The studio is swept, and supplies are put away and there is a palpable emptiness as though the studio awaits your return.  It was a great joy spending these past four weeks with you, hearing your stories, crafting, hiking and holding space for your wishes.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for the gift of your presence.  I wish each of you a magical holiday season surrounded by the people you love.  Mighty J, we missed you, but your friends packed you a bag full of craft supplies and will show you how to make the projects that you missed.

Made so & rooted by love,
Wendy

PS- I would like to take a moment to thank Lexi for her help prepping supplies. I have been fighting an upper respiratory infection and her help was a great relief to me.

Week Three : With Light and to Shine

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine." - Mary Oliver

Today was a cold and blustery day.  We filled our mugs with hot cocoa and chatted about our week.  "What was your most favorite thing about last week", I asked.

In the morning session, our first project was the salt shaker snow globe - which I forgot to take photos of, but you can see one of them in the prior post.  In the afternoon session, we began with talisman necklaces.  These tiny potion bottles are filled with edible star glitter.  If you sprinkle it on your hot cocoa or tea, they float and look like constellations.

We took a nature walk out to the rock scramble and it sure was invigorating.






































For our secondary project we made tiny trees using paper twist ties.

Due to the high winds we were unable to light the fire pit so we tried making s'mores over a beeswax candle.

Dear Mighty Girls,

I hope you have a lovely feast with your family and I will see you in December.  If you wish to wrap any of the gifts that you made, bring them with you and we will do that in the studio on our last day. 


Made so & rooted by love,
Wendy