Author: LittleWoodlanders

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Wooden Spring Toys

I’ve been busy making lots of new toys for spring, and I thought I’d give you a little background on some of them.  Firstly, one of my facebook fans suggested a flower crown girl earlier this year when I was asking for spring ideas. I worked on it for months until I was happy with it. I love how it came out!  I thought it would be nice in a whimsical little set, but it can also be bought on its own.

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I was inspired by my daughters to make these little people. I never told anyone I was thinking of them when I designed them, but when my brother saw them, he said they look like my daughter! I’m so glad he can tell, because they’re meant to!  Here’s the other girl based on my daughter:

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Another suggestion from a facebook fan was a bluebird, so I did that one too!  There are now quite a few of my bluebirds in homes around the world, and I was working on one today as well!

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Ever since I made my Life Cycle of a Butterfly, I’ve wanted to do other life cycles.  I finally made this Life Cycle of a Frog and it’s one of my favorites!  It sparked a lot of learning when I showed it to my girls.  We ended up looking at pictures online of frog’s eggs, tadpoles and frogs, and then in the next few days both my girls were finding pictures of frog metamorphosis in books in our house!

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This next one is another of my favorites.  I love making mommy and baby sets.  I think it started with my babywearing figures, and then I made animal sets, like the mama and baby squirrel, mama and baby hedgehog, and I’ve been just itching to make a mama and baby pig set!

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And last of all, I have to show you my ice cream cone!  I’ve was thinking a lot last summer about making an ice cream cone but never got around to it.  Then a couple weeks ago I just really, really, really wanted to make that ice cream cone, so I did!

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I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing a bit of the background of my newest products.  I’ve enjoyed telling you about them!  For more photos of them, and to see all my other toys, check out my Little Woodlanders Etsy shop!  You can also visit and follow me at these links:

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The Carrot Seed: A Book Review

What an amazing children’s book for learning about doing what you believe in and not giving in to other people trying to discourage you!

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The little boy has an idea.  A plan.

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His family keeps telling him it won’t work out.

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But every day, he keeps at it.  He waters those seeds with determination.

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And do you know what happens in the end?  Should I give it away?   Well, the little boy was rewarded with a great result.  He got what he believed he would get if he worked for it, and more!

I had this book as a kid.  I remember buying it at a library fair.  I just had to get it for my own kids!  What great lessons for them to learn.

 

 

 

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Toys On A Walk

We brought some of our wooden toys for a walk in the woods!  The chicks were feeling adventurous and climbed a mossy tree.

Then they went exploring among the ivy.

Very bravely balancing across a log.  (It was just a tree branch, but they’re so tiny they thought it was a log!)

Next, they found some snails to talk to!

And finally, at the end of their quest, they found the rainbow they had been looking for!  I think they’re looking around for the pot of gold the unicorn told them about back home.

After this, the chicks went home to have some lunch of pickles and popcorn, and a long rest.

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Book Review – My Mummy and Me

My girls found this book at the library and they love it!  They get all cuddly and lovey when we read it together, it’s so sweet!  It’s about a little mouse and his mummy (we live in England, so we say Mummy for Mommy!)

The little mouse tells of the things he likes to do with his mummy and how happy it makes him feel.

He feels so safe and confident when he’s with her, and like he could do anything!

What a sweet book about a mother and child relationship!

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Book Review: The Mystery Of The Missing Red Mitten

This is a new book we just got from the library, and it fits in perfectly with the snowy weather that has been going around lately!

A little girls is outside playing in the snow, and can’t find her mitten.  She thinks of all kinds of places it could be.  For example, mice using it as a sleeping bag.

Then she wonders if maybe she could plant her other mitten and grow a mitten tree.

And she could give everyone mittens for Christmas presents!

She still can’t find her mitten anywhere, after retracing her steps everywhere she went.  She ends up in the neighbor’s house, and looks out the window at the snowman she made.   The snowman suddenly has a red heart!  Can you guess where her mitten is?!

A really cute and different story.  I love how it’s all in black and white except for the mittens!

 

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Book Review: A Winter Story

I bought this book last year for super cheap at a little library near us.  It’s just so adorable and magical!

We got it out of our seasonal book storage box at the beginning of winter and lost if a few days later!  I was so sad!  Finally I found it the other day!   My favorite page is this one at the beginning with all the little lights on in the mouse houses in the trees.

The book tells the story of some mice and a beautiful snow fall.

They all get together and decide to have a ball, and make an amazing hall out of ice and snow.

What an adorable book with such detailed illustrations!  I just love getting this out in winter time, and I’m so glad I found it!

 

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Making Homemade Skin Balm

We use this exclusively in our house for moisturising our skin. It’s made of 3 natural ingredients and very good for you!

The ingredients are:

3/4c beeswax, grated (approx 2x 30g/1oz bars of beeswax)
1c mild olive oil
1/4c coconut oil

1. Grate the beeswax on a cheese grater.
2. Put the oils and the beeswax in a double boiler/bain marie on the stove. This is really just a pot of some water with another pot inside it, so the oils don’t burn. Put the oils in the empty pot which is on top of the pot with water.
3. Heat on low until all melted.  (You could also just melt them in the microwave in a glass measuring jug.)
4. Let cool a minute or so, then pour into jars. The mixture will become more solid as it cools in the jars.

This recipe makes about 2x 200ml jars of skin balm.  Great for dry, winter skin!

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Advent Gardens

My children make these advent gardens every year at the Advent Fair we go to at the local Steiner school.

This year they had, among other thing, clay hedgehogs, bendy dolls, golden pine cones and toadstools!  My daughters made angels out of some white sheep’s wool once we got home, and stuck them in the trees!

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Christmas Peg Doll Tutorial

My daughter loves making peg dolls and asked if we could make some Christmas ones.  Here is a photo of one finished, which my 2  year old wanted to be an angel.  It has a ribbon for a ‘crown’ (I think she meant halo!)

What you will need:

1. Wooden pegs or clothes pins, the kind that don’t have a spring in them.

2.  Scraps of fabric

3.  Ribbons, ric rac, etc

3.  Sheep’s wool, wool roving, or yarn

4.  Craft glue

First we took a scrap of white fabric and wrapped it around, with some glue, to be the underwear.  Try and remember to position it so the ‘legs’ are facing the right way.

Next, we cut out a circle of fabric for the dress, with a diameter of 6″ (15cm) and fold it twice.  Cut a very tiny bit off the top.  This will be where you put the peg through the fabric so it will be on the peg like a dress.

Open it up, stick the peg through the hole, and wrap it around, with some glue on the peg.  Make folds in it so it sits how you like it.

Glue and tie a ribbon around the waist, and add some hair and a face if you like!

The angel, playing with the other toys:

 

 

 

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Book Review: My First Story of Christmas

I love the books by Candle Books.  The stories are always written just right, and the illustrations are beautiful.  This Christmas story is not an exception.

We needed to graduate from the toddler board books we had and find a nice paperback about Christmas, and this one is just perfect.  I love how it shows Mary as a regular girl, washing her dishes!

This is such a nice watercolor illustration of the three kings!

And the last page sums up the story of Christmas!