Snufkin hats

Snufkin, the vagabond and philosopher, arrives each spring to Moominvalley to set up camp, fish, and comfort the small creatures of Moominvalley. He is always wearing a green hat, sometimes decorated with flowers and sometimes with feathers.

If you would like to make your own Snufkin hat, you can use this Pilgrim's hat template, using green paper instead of black. Then decorate. Instead of gluing the headband, we cut notches like this.

Ocean Globes

I saw some instructions for making snow globes on minimega (see the original instructions here). I recruited two young artists, Aiza and her brother Huxley, to try out the craft (along with their very cool mum, Vera).

They did a beautiful job! They made a Snow Globe and then another piece called an Ocean Globe, which is a really lovely idea and makes the whole project feel summery.

We used baby food jars — if you know any new mums, there's a good chance they will have lots. They seal tightly and are a cute little size. Adding a bit of food colouring to the water makes it nice and blue. Maybe you could add some tiny little fish, or some coral.

Here is their beautiful Snow Globe, if you would like to make a tiny piece of winter in July:

Just a little extra note: to soak labels off of jars, using hot water and dish soap with baking soda, overnight, allows you to completely slide the label off with no scrubbing.

Brown Owls

We've been taking a bit of a break due to summer colds, but we'll be back soon with a book review and some snow globes.

In the meantime, here are some owls we've come across recently in our travels:

Owls and nests by the K 1/2 class at Charles Dicken Elementary and a brown owl cardigan adapted from the Owlet pattern by Kate Davies.

Edited to add one more owl, this time one for Auggie, with button eyes:

Buffalo collage collages

Erin from collage collage sent us these lovely portraits of Tulip the Buffalo receiving his birthday present from Snowy & Chinook. These are from a crafting session she held earlier this year. We love the bright red and green tissue against the kraft background. Also googly eyes are always great. We'll be posting more about making paper and tissue collages soon.