We are on a great group board on pinterest full of winter craft ideas. Other pinners on the board include some of our favourite makers and mums, including (in no special order):
Mellow: a starry (and gentle) witch
We are beginning to make our Halloween costumes and we love to go shopping in our own homes and backyards when we can. The classic witch is Mellow's choice. With a homemade newspaper hat from Cardboard Collective, a broomstick made with a small branch and leaves or grass like this or try this easy lightweight broom made from a paper towel tube and re-usable dress and cape, this costume is very gentle on the environment.
For Mellow's dress, we used a star patterned canvas, but our dream fabric was the beautiful starry Adelajda print from Liberty of London. You can still find it on etsy and at some quilting and fabric shops, but may need to be sourced online. Other ideas: a lovely star patterned lightweight corduroy or a starry jersey fabric would be cozy and appealing to wear after halloween is over. It's often easiest to see what's in stock locally, isn't it?
The super-simple Tip Top Pattern from Petit à Petit is a good pattern for whipping up a quick dress or tunic. Layer over warmer clothes, then all you need is a black cardigan, cape or poncho to complete the costume. We're seeing lots of ponchos and capes in the shops right now, it's a good time to be a witch!.
Happy sewing... and remember that our Halloween costume ideas can also be found on our Pinterest Halloween board.
Windy: A Rainy Day Bird
This is the second in our series of DIY costume ideas, inspired by our Halloween story!
With your socks of yellow, you won't mind the weather, especially if you happen to have some nice yellow or red gumboots. Since it usually dry in Windy's paper Orchard, she's wearing her usual buckle shoes, but if you live somewhere rainy (like we do) why not wear some bright yellow tights with your wellies. If you like, you can even wear the wings over your raincoat! You will stand out on a drizzly day with your beautiful bright wings (use light fabrics that won't soak up too much water). If you want to keep your wings dry, perhaps a sky blue umbrella will do the trick.
The wings are easy to make, see this great roundup by Handmade Charlotte and the original post with template by Llevo el invierno.
All our costume ideas are on our Halloween pinboard, too.
Halloween on Pinterest
Hi, if you're looking for Halloween ideas, our Halloween board on Pinterest has lots of costume and party ideas, so come visit! We try to keep our ideas manageable, inexpensive and kind to the earth. Let us know if you have any great tips, we'd love to hear.
Dye made with red cabbage
Naturally dyed eggs
Kool-aid dye and washi tape decorations + our origami easter basket tutorial
This year, we're trying out some red cabbage dye, which makes beautiful blue or green eggs.
Last year, we did kool-aid dye and made some origami easter baskets, too.
The reviews are in: kool-aid dye smells kind of fruity and nice and the cabbage dye ... looks nice :) Either way, they are both pretty lovely methods.
Bread chicks via modernparentsmessykids
Do you have any tips?
Bunny from aquieterstorm
Cabbage-dyed eggs via kaleyann.com
Scribble Cookies
Over here at Windy & friends, we are getting ready for a new story in our series of Appisodes: Windy's Valentine Delight is coming out this week! More news soon, but in the meantime, here is a little Valentine's project we did! Really, you could do this anytime of the year.
We made our scribble cookies with Henry, who was 4 when we made these. To make your own you will need some edible color markers like these ones from Wilton. Edible color markers are basically felt pens with food colouring for ink found in some specialty bake shops — we bought ours online. We found out about them from our friend Lyndsay over at Cococake Land.
We've had ours for a year now and they still work. They have less sugar than icing (in fact they have no sugar), and they don't make a mess. It makes for a really relaxed hands-free session of kid cookie-making with little clean-up time.
Instructions:
1. Make or buy a batch of light-coloured cookies. We made Cinnamon Shortbread adapted from the Gingerbread Shorties at Remedial Eating. The adaptation was: we added more cinnamon ^_^
2. Once they are cool, break out your edible color pens.
That's it! Have a good time in the kitchen.