Felting Ideas

We had our summer fest at the nanny's today. I got so inspired by all the felt work she has for the kids to play with. And since there's so much on my list, I decided to try wet felting today (instead of all the useful things I should have been doing tonight). And I had two really cool ideas - I'm so excited, can you tell? My camera is out of batteries right now, so I can only post my work tomorrow. Here's a clue:


Stay tuned!





Simple: Purple-ish felt ball in the middle on a stick with some green wool wrapped around and a bright red tissue paper wrapped around (not even glued). I hate to say it, but I loved the process how this project came together so quickly, could be realized easily, I learned something about wet felting (my original intention) and I love the result. Feel free to copy, if you like it too. ;)

Wohoo, I felted a tiny ball! Go me!

Felting

Lisa Jordan made these - so wonderful and inspiring! I'm in love with her work! And she has some tutorials too!



These are stones!




And here's my try:


I'm really not happy with the result. I predict it'll all fall apart, when Lenara is playing with it. :(

Summer Hat & Camera Bean Bag

Snack Inspiration

The dough is made of curd cheese and oil. It's a basic. You can use it for regular pizza, for little apple pies (just roll out little flat pieces, put apples and some sugar crumbs on top), for pizza rolls and sweet cinnamon-nut-rolls. What I like about the dough is, that it's done really quickly and I usually have the ingredients at home anyway.

300g flour / Mehl
1 EL/table spoon baking soda / Backpulver (Weinstein-)
75g sugar/ Zucker (for sweet dough)
150g curd cheese / Quark
1 egg / Ei
6 EL/table spoon oil / Öl
2 EL/table spoon milk / Milch
a bit of salt / Salz (more for pizza dough)

Mix liquid ingredients first, then add flour mixed with baking soda. Roll out, spread topping, roll up dough from one side and cut off small slices. Bake at 180° for about 20 minutes.


Fruit and dark bread on a spit. An alternative to crackers and apples - our usual snack. ;)

Summer Outfits for Annabel and Maruun

Friends

Hairy Challenge

After 2 yrs and 3 months and 9 months prior to that of looking forward to this... she finally let me do her hair!

Purzelbaum - Somersault

I have no idea, who taught her this. I don't think I've even mentioned the word before. Must have been Daddy, cousins or kids at the nanny's. I was so suprised when I looked over to her and she was doing a really good one. The ones I videotaped weren't as perfect - but still funny. ;)

Making Play Dough!

Rainy Day. Tea. Pretzels. Erykah Badu blasting from the web radio...
We made some play dough for the first time today. So fun! That's going to be something we'll do a lot in the future.






RECEIPE:
What you need for making this non-toxic play dough, which will last a couple of weeks in a plastic container/bag in your fridge:

200g flour/Mehl (type 405)
100g salt/Salz
2EL/table spoons safflower oil/Distelöl
2EL/table spoons tartaric acid/Weinsäure (Apotheke/Pharmacy)
200ml boiling water/kochendes Wasser

optional:
(dry or fluid) food coloring/Lebensmittelfarbe (Pulver oder flüssig)

Take 2/3 of the flour. Mix it with salt and tartaric acid (use hand mixer). Slowly add the boiling water while mixing. Add oil. If the dough is still too greasy add the rest of the flour bit by bit and start working with your hands until dough is perfect. If you use food coloring powder add it to the dry ingredients in the beginning. If you use the fluid, add in the end. We separated 3 parts and used 3 different colors.

NOTE: The dough is non-toxic, yet NOT edible! Children shouldn't eat a larger amount. So please watch your kids when using the play dough!

Some more examples of our work. We loved the table soccer part:

Sometimes sewing is all you can do...

I wish being there would help the situation. We feel like we don't know what we can do to help. These are my best efforts.

Dates

Just a month ago, Olivia adopted a grandma who was at the park with a young girl. Since, we saw the woman a couple times and planned some playdates. We were so happy with the sweet little friendship these two had, we asked her to babysit. She was hoping we'd ask!

So, for our second time in a month, we went on a date!

We went on a scooter ride to a sushi restaurant. Truth is, we never know where we're going to go until we are about to leave the driveway.


It's fun Getting out and being goofy together again!

Don't, Mommy!

I get to hear a lot of DONT's from my 2-year-old lately.
--
Don't chew on that pencil, Mommy.

Don't get up from the table before I'm finished, Mommy.

Don't walk in the living room with your shoes on, Mommy.
--
At times it's getting quite annoying. But it does show that she actually understood the rules that we have. So yeah! And I have to admit, she is right sometimes. It's funny how it makes you realize how important Mommies are as rolemodels.

Yet today, I got to hear a new one. Soooo funny. We were sitting at the lunch table. Eating, talking. Like usually. Nothing special. I must have been drifting away in my thoughts and suddenly she got very angry:

Don't look at my pacifier, Mommy!!!

Ewwww, what???? My face must have been turned toward the pacifier lying on the table, while I was dreaming. And it made her really really angry. I thought it was too funny. So later on I kept teasing her: Lala, I'm looking at your pacifier!!! Look! Look! I'm looking... And it became a really good joke. We cracked down laughing. I think it's one of our first running gags.

First time Potty!!!

Lenara peed in the potty for the very first time today!!!! Wohooooo!

(And yes, I took a picture of it! LOL)

Summer Fairy

I made this one today. It's already in the mail to my friend in Berlin. Happy Birthday, Marlies!

Fleck!

Lenara has this habit of rubbing moles (on my or Daddy's neck) whenever she's tired. Also while falling asleep. While Daddy is cool with it, it drives me crazy. CRAZY! And the moles on my neck hurt already due to all the rubbing.

So today I had an idea:


Good luck, Annabel! Your turn!

P.S. One more proof of how crazy motherhood can be. If someone would have told me I would be sewing a mole on a doll 3 years earlier... LOL

Cozy Cave

Summer Dress

Wow, we're in the middle of SUMMER. I had all those plans to make summer dresses and none of them happened yet. A couple of nights ago my urge to sew was great enough to get out the sewing machine and make a quick one. We love it! Have a look: