Christmas Stars!

These stars don't look much while you're making them, but when you put them onto the window, they actually glow. Here is how to make them.

First buy some "kite paper" from your nearest Waldorf supplier. I got ours from Southern Aurora Books in Bibra Lake. If you're not in Perth, try your local Waldorf supplier, ie Willowwood Cottage or even ebay.

Fold the paper in half (to make this step faster, carefully place 4-6 pages together, making sure they don't slip and cut them all together), cut exactly down the centre, place them all together then fold again lenthways, and cut again. Repeat and cut them widthways, so you will have lots of rectangular coloured pieces of kite paper.

Fold the corners inwards on each piece as shown, then on only one end fold over again, as shown.

Once you have lots of 'uneven' dimond shapes, place a small amount of glue on the spots shown, being careful not to apply too much or your star will stick to whatever surface you're working on.

Place each 'diamond' on top of the other until

you reach the last one, which you will need to slot into place and onto a small amount of glue on the back of the starting diamond.

Hang in the window and admire!

Cute & Goofy St Nick's Characters

It's only three weeks until St Nicholas day, so we got this St Nicholas and Black Peter pompom children's kit from Witte Engel in Holland and had fun making them up:
The kit ccomes with a pom pom maker, and my son had a ball with it. We made the little presents out of covered match boxes and the basket we found in Spotlight.

How To Choose Good Stuffing Wool

Here is a photo of two types of wool strands. The top one is felting wool and the lower one is stuffing wool. The difference is that the felting wool is much finer and more silky. The lower one is courser and has more space between the fibres. If you stuff dolls with finer, felting type wool, you will end up with more of a lumpy look, you will use a lot more, and it will be much harder work. Also, it is vital that the wool used for stuffing is completely dry of any Lanolin. Even a small amount of "grease" will eventually seep through the doll's tricot skin and create a "greasy" look!

New looks for dolls

I now have these great new onesies in really beaut colours. So if you order a Dreamtime baby doll, you can have them dressed in one of these if you like... or stick with the old style.

And the Child Dolls with streaks in their hair, pants and tops and more interesting colours. The boy dolls remain traditional knights and Frodos, which are the most popular, and you can still order traditional girl dolls.

The Pearl At The Centre of the Spiral

Our local Waldorf school celebrated mid winter with the interactive story of Yentz who goes off in search of the lost pearl, that is his inheritance. The children follow behind Yentz with their colourful handmade lanterns, as he stops to pass various character tests along the way around the school grounds, which is made up of bushland. Finally, he finds his way to the cavern where his lost pearl is at the centre of a beautiful spiral of fresh bouganvillia flowers. I was one of the spiral singers, so the only photos I could get were these taken during the warm ups.

The "Sewn" Farmyard!

What do you do if you drool over The Knitted Farmyard pics, yet you can't knit very well? Easy: just create a farmyard out of leftover fabrics and old sweaters, and sew them together like a quilt. This is as far as I got, since I had to work this week; there are still houses to make, but we're having fun with it already.

Da Vinci's Last Supper Waldorf Style

Jesus and the 12 disciples were made using the wood and wire dolls, with both felt and silk clothes and wool tops for hair (click on the pic for a clearer version).
Something interesting about this famous Da Vinci painting from my Foundations in Anthroposophy course a few years ago; our lecturer showed us the "wave" pattern created by the hands. Check out the pink line I've drawn on the painting below. I tried very hard to bend the little dolls hands (above) into the same "wave" pattern!

The Rule of Six

I got this little list from this blog. It's short, powerful and easy to remember.

Six Things to Include in Your Child's Day:

• meaningful work
• imaginative play
• good books
• beauty (art, music, nature)
• ideas to ponder and discuss
• prayer

Sculpture By The Sea

Every year Cottestloe Beach has a Sculpture By The Sea event. I liked this one:










My son and dh liked the "Lifesavers";















The setting sun and a swim ended off the evening:

St Patrick

Here is St Patrick ready for St Patrick's day in 2 weeks. He is made with those incredibly versatile wood and wire dolls you can get at most Waldorf craft outlets. He is holding the famous "shamrock". Saints make great role models in extraordinary and "superhuman" courage and virtue. Kids love the story of St Patrick, especially the part where he bangs his staff on the ground and all the snakes go into the sea!

A Possum is not an Opossum

Possums in Australia are CUTE! This caused some confusion to my American customers because they thought I was making an Opossum, which is apparently not a cuddly cutsie like the possum.










To clear that up, here is a pic of a REAL possum, from Australia. How cute is that?









I made this possum from the Hedgehog pattern in the book; "Trudy's Tiere"which is in German or Dutch, not English, and can be purchased from Witte Engel. It doesn't matter if you don't speak German or Dutch as the patterns are fairly straight forward. Just one thing - the patterns are without hems added, so be sure to add your hems all the way around the pattern.

New Dolls on Etsy

This is Lucy; a 16" Radiance Child doll. You can adopt her from my ETSY store.

This child doll stands at 16 inches, and is made with pure and natural products. She is stuffed with clean and dry New Zealand wool, and her skin is made from Witte Engel's famous tricot. Her hair includes over 50gms of mohair, carefully looped into a crocheted cap. She is wearing a pure cotton outfit and pure wool felt shoes. She also comes with bloomers underneath and the dress is in two parts with pinafore.

Just Landing Again ....

Been really busy with Christmas then school holidays. Also working a few days per week on an anorexia ward with teen girls (I'm also a nurse in my spare time). I taught some of them to crochet while I sat and crocheted wigs next to them. So I've finally been able to make a few more dolls and have uploaded some to ETSY.