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What’s new, and, well, natural from the Naturalkids Team on Etsy

Welcome! I continue my trek backwards through the alphabet to bring to you the most wonderful and imaginative treasures. They are all handmade with natural materials from…yes! the NaturalKids Team on Etsy! This week, we feature wonderful variety of artists who work in either wood or wool, bug and love working with sustainable, natural materials.

Friendly Skunk Toy

Woodmouse‘s Amber creates Eco-friendly wooden toys handmade from sustainably harvested USA poplar. All the wooden toys and figures in the shop are designed, cut, woodburned and sanded by her.  Her water-based paints have been independently third-party tested for safety. They are AP Certified non-toxic and bear the ACMI non-toxic label. Amber seals with organic jojoba oil and beeswax from a local beekeeper. Here is her Friendly Skunk Toy.

Wood Phone Toy

 The Wood Toy Shop  is run by Mark, a stay at home dad, who just installed new solar electric panels to power the workshop! His toys are built to last from hard woods and are finished with non-toxic mineral oil. Most of the wood he uses are mill ends and scrap from cabinet shops. Here is his Wood Phone Toy.

Sea Horse Wool Diaper Cover

Angela, of Wild Child Woolies  is a  stay at home/work at home/homeschooling (I guess she’s HOME a lot!) mom of 5 awesome kids. In her shop you’ll find unique, top quality, handmade wool interlock diaper covers for cloth diapered infants and toddlers. Here is her Seahorse Wool Interlock Pull Up Diaper Cover/Soaker.

Wet Felted Pocket Mirror

Kim of  Viltalakim crafts all of her household decor items, wearables and and other treasures, by the wet felting technique with super soft merino wool. She does this all by hand, without sewing/ knitting first. No washing machine, just her own hands… Here is her Wet Felted Pocket Mirror

From imaginative wood toys for storytelling and play to natural baby necessities to wet felted wool treasures, these are just a few of the natural creations you will find from our shops hailing from all over the world.

Thanks for joining us this week! Please do return again next Monday as we continue to feature all the wonderful members of the NaturalKids team on Etsy. Until then, I invite you to browse all our wonderful shops.

Warmly,
Rebecca aka Nushkie
Nushkie on Facebook
Posted on

What’s new, and, well, natural from the Naturalkids Team on Etsy

Welcome! I continue my trek backwards through the alphabet to bring to you the most wonderful and imaginative treasures. They are all handmade with natural materials from…yes! the NaturalKids Team on Etsy! This week, we feature wonderful variety of artist from who have one thing in common – they all work with natural materials.


Babus – From teethers to felted dolls, everything you see in this shop is made with love and by hand by Michelle in Silver Spring, Maryland. Michelle says,”Using sustainably produced wool yarns, I knit and wet felt all my toys to make them fuzzy, warm, sweet and enduring.”

Here is her Original Baby Chain Wool Felt Toy.

AshperJasper‘s Vicky is an artist/homeschooling Mum (to Asher and Jasper) living in Southern California. Originally from England, she moved here after falling in love with a young American artist on a painting trip to Italy. Her husband has been contributing wooden toys to her store for about a year. Vicky says,”I love that we can work creatively together again! I have to admit that I am a wool addict. I LOVE the stuff. We are a family floating in a sea of wool and wood at all times.” They offer natural wood and wool toys and accessories. Here most recent post to her Etsy shop is an invitation for you to begin felting with her Deluxe Needle Felting Starker Kit for Beginners.

Armadilo Dreams is a husband/wife shop run by Dustin and Amanda. They live in Central Oregon. They say, “We combined our love for our children, natural materials, woodworking and Armadillo Dreams was born! Together we make an awesome team and love to work together as a family.” Here is their Rainbow Birdie and Wooden Egg – Toy Play Set.

Those are the featured new items for this week. What a rainbow of delightful treasures from one of a kind felted baby toys, to felting starter kits to lovely wooden toys! All are made from natural materials and from the hands of folks who love nature, children, and open ended toys. This is just a small sample of the quality and variety our customers enjoy from the fine crafters and artists of the NaturalKids team.

Thanks for joining us this week and please do return again next Monday as we continue to feature all the wonderful members of the Naturakids team on Etsy! Til then, I invite you to browse all our wonderful shops.


Warmly,
Rebecca aka Nushkie
Nushkie on Facebook

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Nature Table, Keeping it Organized

In the post yesterday I did a craft with kids on how to make these great Seasonal Organizing Storage Boxes

Here are some other great ways that you can store your Handmade items:

Cotton, Knitted Wool, and Organza Bags
Fun Theme Fabric Bags

Today we took some time to organize our Nature Table items. It is important to inspect your handmade items at this time to see if they may need to be repaired or cleaned. Check out this post about how to care for your handmade toys.

Sorting and cleaning felted wool toys.

Cleaning and re-waxing if needed to the wooden toys.

We ended up with some unwelcome guest who thought the fairy could use some company! It is hard to get the kids to focus on our task and they often try to wander away but the dog is harder to get him to work, :).

Not a good helper!

Finally we organized by season! We collected the toys and lined the bottom of the box with that seasons playsilk. Some items were added by themselves, while others we placed in cotton or organza bags.

Autumn

Summer

Labeling was our final step before putting them in their new home under the Nature Table!

Article by Beccijo, The Enchanted Cupboard

Do you have a great tip for organizing your Nature Table toys? Feel free to share with us your ideas and comments!

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What’s New, and, Well, Natural from the Natural Kids Team on Etsy

Welcome! We may be past Valentine’s day…but we’re not finished with the love! In this case, the love of making handmade treasures created with natural materials from…yes! the Naturalkids Team on Etsy! Today I’m going to continue my trek backwards through the alphabet to bring the stories of our members and their newest listings.

The Fairies Nest is the home of OOAK (one of a kind) art dolls, fairies, Waldorf toys, and textile treasures from the Lands of Enchantment. All dolls found there are designed and handmade by Cynthia Toy, using her own patterns and eco-friendly natural fibers and fabrics.

Cynthia’s dolls require many hours to make as she designs and creates each doll completely from her own imagination. Many of the dolls are made from the inside out without patterns, and each face is carefully drawn and painted by hand using no patterns or stencils. Because of this, no two dolls are EVER exactly alike, they are all one of a kind; like people, each has its own distinct personality.

Speaking of personality, here is a new and incredibly adorable rat! This rat is not cute just once…but twice…proving two heads are better than one! Two headed Rat Art Doll

The Enchanted Cupboard: “You enter a quaint gift shop…You see a large old enchanted cupboard with a vast amount of drawers and doors; you walk to it as sweet, whispered words fill your ears, ‘Inside you will find your heart’s desire!’ “

Beccijo of The Enchanted Cupboard is an award-winning artist from the age of eleven, when she picked up some oil pastels and began to draw everything she saw with her eyes and in her imagination. Her parents signed her up for Art Class at a local Art Studio. She received many Gold Key Awards and donated many of her art works to charity for auctions. Beccijo sold her first painting when she was 17. She went off to study Art at college and was awarded The Most Outstanding Student of Art for 1991. Since then, she has let her heart and her art lead her. Beccijo continues to draw and paint but has now found great passion for toy making and personal custom dolls painted to the likeness of her subject…from wedding cake toppers to childrens’ toys. You just have to open the cupboard to find them! Here is her Rainbow Wooden Dolls and Mushroom Box

Sunshadow Slippers is a ‘from home’ business that Tracey runs with her three children. They make indoor shoes for Steiner/Waldorf schools, but they are just as fabulous to be worn as slippers around the house. They are soft and ‘snuggly’ for baby toes all the way up to older toes in need of some nurture.

All materials are natural fibers. The soles are leather, the tops are made of snug fitting cotton, and inside there is a pure wool felt insole – your feet will never feel more loved!

Each pair of slippers is uniquely created to be as individual as her customers. The motifs are from nature, butterflies and dragonflies, frogs and possums, dolphins and turtles, like ones featured here: Playful Possum Print Slippers – Hand dyed in pure cotton

Sheree, creator of Sheree’s Atelier is an MIT trained chemist. Now, instead of mixing up chemicals in the lab, she prefers to spend her days at home with her family mixing up fabrics and yarns and other magical ingredients to create the items in her shop.

Sheree designs and makes all of the lovely dresses, bags and other goodies from the finest natural materials, and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Here is Sheree’s Aqua Floral and Dots Emma tote for Girls

From wooden toys to woolen stuffed animals, slippers and accessories, this week’s selection from the Natural kids Team on Etsy offers you just a taste of the natural creations you can expect to find and make part of your life from our wonderful artists and craftspeople. Look here for a full list of our shops!

Thank you for visiting this week. I’ll have more shops to introduce you to next week as I showcase their recent creations. I look forward to seeing you then, in the meantime, our blog has interesting and informative entries each day. Enjoy!

Creatively yours,
Rebecca a.k.a. Nushkie