our homeschooling group, new york city home educator's alliance, has monthly meetings with different themes. the december meeting is always a craft fair, at which the children may sell homemade crafts. the girls usually begin preparing for the meeting in september . . here are a few pictures of the children with their wares:
gael made soaps. i bought several to put out when guests visit.
natalie and lucy made delicious cookies and crispy rice bars. i still have a bag that i'm saving for tomorrow.
chanda had potholders, gnomes, and lavender pillows. korrina had hats and kitties. (the animals always sell quickly). our friend tessa made buttons, bookmarks and wrapping paper.
morgana made the cutest hedgehogs . . and she made them in minutes last night . . i'm surprised at how quickly the girls can needlefelt.
------
every year at our craft fair, we have about six or seven or eight individual crafts for nychea members to sit down and work at. this year we had woolen angels, paper chains, god's eyes, peace doves, gift tags, snowflakes, and wax designs on candles. i didn't get pictures of all of them . . but i did get a few:
the felt ball snowflakes were a big hit. the table was always busy. you took two felted flat, yet puffy, circles and sewed a ribbon along the edge. then you attached the other circle, sewed a snowflake ribbon or other pretty ribbon on the side, and then strung a white ribbon from which it could hang.
they're so pretty!
all of us really enjoyed making gift tags. onto squishy foam board we stenciled a drawing with a pencil, then rolled paint along the design, pressed it onto the manila card, and voila:
i made this one. it's supposed to be our kitty, xena.
here is my table (with all our drying gift tags) with yarn and cinnamon sticks for god's eyes, and tissue paper and scissors to cut out peace doves:
we have a small dove mobile spiral over our dining table right now for the holidays. it's actually a whitsun dove mobile . . but we're using it for christmas peace doves . . i guess i haven't thought of a better christmas mobile yet!
god's eyes come from the huichol peoples of northwestern mexico. they call them sikuli, and they are a symbol of the power to see and understand things unknown. according to wikipedia, when a child is born, the father makes the first eye, and thereafter an eye is added each year until the child is five.
it was back to the old grindstone, today, after emptying the craft fair bags and straightening up from visitors (still laundry to be done). morgana emptied the bags . . she didn't want to find them next december, she said, filled with old craft items (oh dear . . ). xena watched, while waiting impatiently for some cream from the frig to find it's way into a bowl for her. chanda ran around and tried to look busy putting things away as directed by morgana. korrina, as usual, was busy doing her own thing in her room. and me? i was dealing with kitchen chores after setting up a botany lesson.
we have beautiful flowers on the piano from the performances. i'm not sure who finally put them into vases . . perhaps it was greg, but i enjoyed lighting the candles and setting up the photo. the middle vase is an old one from my mom, which reads "weller" on the bottom. i just googled it, and it seems to be an old line of pottery items from weller pottery. "matt" is written after the weller name. if you look at this link, and scroll down, you will find a "dresden" line which looks rather like the vase above. what is interesting to me, and coincidental, is that the weller company moved to zanesville, ohio in 1882. i've actually been to zanesville, ohio in 1993. i was pregnant with korrina and greg was researching his ancestors. they were from zanesville, and we took a loooong drive there in the hot august summer. i don't remember too much about it except for old looking storefronts and a cemetery.
