OWOH - Blog Giveaway!!!!!!

Welcome to my Magic Carpet,  please climb on and enjoy the ride as you circle the globe exploring the wonders of One World One Heart!

Welcome to my One World One Heart Giveaway!!! 
This is an amazing event organized by the talented Lisa of A Whimsical Bohemian.  Thank you Lisa for sharing your time and energy hosting such a fun and wonderful event. At present there are over 1000 bloggers participating and there are still a few days left to join in. It is mostly a community of artists but any blogger is welcome to participate. To learn more, follow the link above or the badge in my sidebar. Check it out, you're sure to have fun and meet other fun bloggers and amazing artists and see their work.

The RULES : 

1.  Because this is an event designed to bring bloggers together you must have a blog.

2.  Leave 1 comment on THIS post (please one comment only) By Midnight February 14th (Pacific time).  If you would like to make it a little more fun, please tell me your favorite song.  But this is not a requirement, just for fun.

3.  Be sure there is a way for me to contact you, in case you are the lucky winner. 

4.  Winner will be chosen randomly on February 15th and will be contacted by email to get their mailing address.

5.  Winner must respond within 2 days or another winner will be chosen.

1st PRIZE:I made these earrings, They are fiery orange cut glass beads with gold plated copper earwires.

Also 1st PRIZE: This is a Flower hairclip I made from a velvet rose and a large salon quality clip. You can wear it in your hair OR clip to a hat or anyplace around the house. I have one clipped to my cloche and it is securely fastened yet quick and easy to put on and take off.

2nd PRIZE:  Here is a similar one, a Rose but not velvet.

3rd PRIZE: A hairclip I made with chrysanthemums.

My daughter Really wanted to do a giveaway so I am listing hers here, she will do a drawing from our comments as well, so now you have even more chances to win!

4th Prize  Daughter has made a pretty rock star card and has paired that up with a sparkley Iron-on Electric guitar and a flower magnet she made.

 Best of Luck to you and Have a wonderful time on your Carpet ride!!!

Don't forget to stop and visit again. Right now I am working on designing some clothes and an art doll and another fun painted toy for the kids, I can hardly wait to show you all! So please check back and see what I've been up to!

Craft Hope for Haiti

Please if you are doing any shopping at least check out this Etsy shop!

They are donating 100% of the proceeds to Doctors Without Borders to benefit Haitian people in need of Medical care.

The Ingalls Family and Furniture

In my last post I showed you the Little House in the Big Woods, now I get to show you the Family that lives there.

I think working on the people was my favorite part of this project! So Much FUN!!


I started with turned wood people in 3 sizes and began by sketching with pencil what I wanted each one to look like.









I painted them with regular acrylic paints doing layers of color (especially for the hair) and then put a coat of clear spray paint over the dry paint to protect it and give it a glossy finish. The family was really fun to paint and I am really glad I sketched them out before I painted them, I'd have been lost without those guidelines even though I changed some things. I don't have a very steady hand but I like the way they turned out, in the future if I make more I will simplify them a bit.



I used a piece of figured maple and some dowels to make furniture. the bedding is a piece of felted sweater and some squares woven on 2 sizes of those little vintage weaving looms.



I crocheted a little rug from scrap yarn. It's the coziest little house and the kids have so much fun with it, it's a hit for sure!

The "Little House in the Big Woods"

To see the family & furniture check out my Ingalls Family post

It all started with a seemingly innocent trip to the craft store.

I spotted this little "bird" house and the wheels started turning. Before long I pictured it nestled deep in the "Big Woods" or standing alone on "the Prarie" a cute little house, waiting to be lived in by the brave and adventurous Ingalls family. My girls LOVE the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and I read them all when I was growing up. SO it seemed like the perfect project for a Christmas surprise.
Here's how made the House and Family, up late at night working in the kitchen in the quiet.


There is a seam on the end wall equal with the top of the front wall where it is glued and has some brads running through.

To break that I put a putty knife in gave it a light tap with a hammer and pried the pieces apart, then pulled the brads out with pliers.

I used a hacksaw to cut the log out of the bottom of the door, then chipped away the remaining glue with the putty knife. No I'm not known for insisting that the tool be the "correct" one for the job, if it works and my use doesn't damage it then I figure we're fine.



The tall people were a tiny bit too tall for the doorway so I ended up having to go out to the garage and sand the bottoms of them with a belt sander, finally they would fit through the door.

Then came the fun part.


I mixed regular acrylic paint with water to make a stain and brushed it onto the cabin with a sponge brush, then wiped it off with a paper towel.


I ended up doing several layers to get the color depth that I wanted.

I did the same with the roof and interior but used different colors for each. Painted the chimney a few times before I got what I wanted.


When I had finished the house it was Perfect!

Foul Weather Blogging

Well it seems that I am a foul Weather Blogger. I didn't set out to be, but boy have we had a busy spring and summer. Now we are well into fall and I realized I have not had an opportunity to write in a very long time. I'm back with lots of things I have been saving up to tell you about. Life here is busier than ever, but I will do my best to make time to catch up with you all.

Homemade Powdered Laundry Soap - Frugal Friday

It's a Frugal Friday so today I made powdered laundry soap, I have a front loading washer and this works very well in it. I also use vinegar in place of Fabric softener, it helps to keep any soap film from building up as well as making clothes colors stay true for longer and making them feel softer and they don't smell like vinegar after they are dry.

Here's the recipe I made:

2 cups borax (20 Mule team)
2 cups Arm & Hammer washing soda (NOT baking soda)
1 bar fels naptha laundry soap- (finely grated so it will disolve easily in the washer)

If you are like me and do not have a food processor you can grate the soap by hand, I use a vintage rotary grater that would normally be used for hard cheese, it worked pretty well and gave me the tiny pieces I was wanting.

Once you have the soap grated you pour the 3 ingredients in a bowl, mix them till they are evenly blended, transfer them to a container with a lid to keep moisture out. That's it. I use 1/8 cup per load and the clothes have been coming out clean and smelling clean but not detergenty. I still have to spot treat just like I did with regular detergent, but that's no worse than before.

I have a friend who has extremely sensitive skin so she makes her own soap, she uses her soap in place of the Fels-Naptha bar when she makes laundry soap.

The first time I decided to try this I had a little trouble finding all the ingredients, the washing soda was the toughest. I found all three ingredients at a Fred Meyers store near me. Some people have said they get it at Wal-mart, but where I live Fred Meyers is the only place I could find that had it and I called them all. SO it might pay to call around before you waste a half tank of fuel looking for the washing soda. I have also seen some companies selling it online if you can't find it where you live.

It's a pretty simple way to save a few bucks. It will be even easier when I get a food processor. That's on my thrift list, I'll find one soon. :-) I bet I have saved enough money on my last 2 batches of laundry soap to pay for the food processor when I find it. ;-)

Snow globes - Mary Poppins party

Toppens.....
As I said in my post about the party I love the snowglobe scene and feed the birds song from the Mart Poppins movie.

Here's how we made the snowglobes.
Materials:
Baby food jars - upcycled
Nickels- 1 per jar
Hot glue gun & glue sticks
glitter- I used pink because I already had it. I wonder if there is any tiny bird shaped glitter out there.... that would be super cool!



Sprinkle a bit of glitter into the jar filled with water.


Hot glue a nickel standing upright onto the inside of the lid.

Put the lid on the jar and turn it over. If there is a large bubble like you see here, you may want to add more water, I wasn't able to get it bubble free but it was much better.

Spoonful of sugar - Mary Poppins party treat

I have been thinking of this often lately while I have been taking NyQuil, imagine if it were not sweet and candy flavored... I shudder to think what it would taste like.

Anyway, spoonfuls of sugar sound completely simple enough, but to make for less mess and more fun here's what I did.


I put plastic spoons on a plate, then I put a drop or two of water in each spoon then poured green sugar sprinkles over the water till the spoons were full and let it sit for at least a day and overnight to dry. The sprinkles hardened into a lump and stuck to the spoon, perfect for easy serving. The green was inspired by the Lime cordial flavored medicine Michael had to take after being out in the rain, and showed up nice on the spoon, as well as giving the kids green mouths which they fully enjoyed. I thought of making some in red for Jane's flavor but didn't. Incidentally at that time I thought some real Rum punch would be yummy for the grown ups at the party since that was the flavor of Mary's medicine, although I would serve it in cute vintage crystal punch cups. If it were the right group of parent's I would totally do that, but didn't this time.

Kite Craft - from the Mary Poppins party

The Kite craft was fun for my girls and pretty easy.

The supplies I used are also inexpensive and easy to find.
kite string - $1 for 200ft. spool
bamboo skewers $1 for 100
plastic for kites - used 1 kitchen trash bag cut out 8 kites
scotch tape - $1 a spool
Glue gun & glue sticks
ribbon for the tail - $.50 a spool
cardboard for string holders - used the cardboard divider from a boardgame box, game still works fine and it was free and looks nicer than cereal box cardboard (you could use that and paint it if you wanted, or of course there is always cardstock in amazing colors and prints for you paper junkies out there).


I unfolded the trash bag out flat then folded it in 1/4 so that there were 8 layers of plastic (it was already 2 layers) then cut out a kite shape. At this point it may have been good to actually have a pattern of some sort, to make the kite perfectly even for the best flying, but I just cut it out without a pattern.


I cut the skewers to length for the cross bar (cutting off the sharp end) and fastened 2 together with hot glue to be long enough for the other stick, I later went back and cut off most of the overlap to lighten it up and remove the pointy ends. On one kite I used scotch tape to attach the bamboo sticks to the plastic which seemed to work fine till a particularly big gust of wind tore it loose. On the other kite I used hot glue at the end of each stick to attach the plastic, that held very well. I also attached the tails in the same way but I think a wider ribbon might work better as it needs to be weightier.


I unwound some kite string onto the cardboard where I had cut a notch for the string to go into and tied it around the card, then wound a bunch around so that I had enough for fun flying. Then I tied the other end of the cut string to the center cross of the kite tying it around both sticks, you should use a bowline knot for this if you want it to hold good, a square or granny knot will likely slip and your kite may escape.

Now you are ready to go fly a kite!!

The craziest part is that Miss 4 and Miss 8 think I am some sort of amazing genius because I made a kite, even though to be honest it doesn't fly that well. We are still having lots of fun, proof that you don't have to be perfect to have fun! (just make the effort to be a bit creative and you just might be magically "Practically perfect in every way" if you are brave enough to give it a shot)

Mary Poppins Birthday Party

Miss 3 has just graduated to being Miss 4 so to celebrate the occasion we decided to have a birthday party for her. She wasn't sure what sort of party she wanted so I waited for inspiration.... Well finally 2 days before the party it struck me, a Mary Poppins party would be perfect!!!! She has been obsessed with the movie, asking to watch it almost every day (I don't let her watch much tv or movies at all, so it's not often that she actually gets to see it. We've had a lot of colds and flu lately though, so there's been more than normal, which I think has led to the Mary Poppins obsession.)

We were at the store and Miss 4 had seen the Mary Poppins Barbie along with Bert and Jane and Michael. She went into the kind of frenzy only a 3 year old could. I did not buy them at the time but thought the Mary Poppins one might make a good birthday present since she was so excited and obviously wanted it. Lucky for me, I found them at the Grocery outlet and they were a great deal, they even had all of them. So the entire set only cost me $30 instead of the $75- $90 they were at the toy store. I was really excited to be able to buy them, that's when the idea struck for the Mary Poppins Party.


So here's what I planned for the party... with just 2 days to plan and pull it together.

This part probably sounds vain, well at least it does to me, but since I love costume design and haven't been doing any plays lately I went with it just for fun. Besides, I don't remember ever claiming "not" to be vain. I dressed as Mary Poppins. Miss 4 loved the idea and told me I would be going away and that Mary Poppins would be at her party, she was so excited about it. I already had the coat and the right shape(wrong color) hat, and a black umbrella (although not a parrot handle on it), so I thought I should be able to pull an outfit together for the party. I'll tell you more about my costume later on, hopefully adding some better photos too.



To start the party off, the kids did sidewalk chalk drawings. I got the big box of sidewalk chalk ($5) and Miss 8 gave it to Miss 4 as one of her gifts on her actual birthday. For the party she was glad to share and have everyone doing chalk drawings with her. That part went well. Then the kids played on the swings for a bit, which was fine but I would have had them come in sooner if I'd known that most of them needed to leave early.




If you have seen Mary Poppins you may remember "Toppins toppins toppins a bag" Well I loved the scene with the snow globe and was trying to figure out how make snowglobes that were fun and not expensive. I was roaming the store looking for something small yet significant to the story to put in baby food jars for snow globes. Aha! Toppins! I decided to use Nickels and it worked out great! I did the gluing of the Toppins and the kids poured glitter into the jars of water I helped them put the lids on and ta-da! a snowglobe with toppins. Each cost me a nickel, the rest of the supplies were either on hand (glue & glitter) or recycled (baby food jars).




To go along with the "lets go fly a Kite" song I also had a kite craft ready but most of the kids had to leave early so we skipped it, my girls had a blast with it after the party though, so I think it would still be a good idea.



I made "spoonfulls of sugar" for the kids and they were a hit. (I did not give them any other candy or send home bags of candy like most birthday parties my kids have been to, so I felt like a spoonful of sugar was fun and not too much sugar really.)



Miss 4 wanted a barbie doll cake and we have the pan,(thanks to the Paisley Penguin! ;-) so I made a Mary Poppins cake for her. If you ever use a real barbie with the wilton doll cake pan you need to add a single, or double layer cake under it to make it tall enough for the barbie, also take a knife and cut a hole in the center to put barbie in. I might add that barbie was very clean before we put her in the cake ;-)I have to say that while I am capable of decorating cakes pretty nicely, a lot depends on the consistency of the frosting and amount of time I want to put into it. Lucky for me Miss 4 is not a critical child and was totally happy with the cake. If I'd had more time I would have made a little hat and certainly would have done a more professional looking job with the frosting (I actually shudder at the frosting on this cake). As it was, I used a 7 minute icing (that I will never make again) it was droopy and didn't hold the shape of an icing tip at all. Oh well it was cake and we ate it and now it's gone. ;-) None of the kids seemed to mind the lack of decorating perfection. I did get many complements on the frosting tasting really good and Miss 8 thinks it was the yummiest frosting she ever had.


Miss 4 was so thrilled with the Mary Poppins, Bert, Jane and Michael, Barbies, she has been playing with them for the better part of the last 2 days, along with taking swims with her new mermaid and playing My little pony. I think the ponys have been filling in for the Carousel horses with the Mary Poppins group too.


I think I'll write a couple Tutorial type blog entries showing how I made stuff for the party and the details of my costume (which I just might wear on a daily basis, but only if I find a good carpet bag). Hope this was fun for you, it sure was for all of us!