Clean.

Our Spring Celebration.

We love our spring celebration. In the past couple of years we've dramatically simplified our traditions (and the amount of both sweets and stuff that come into our world), and it has created a more magical meaningful day for us all.

In our family, Easter is a seasonal (rather than religious) celebration. That being said, it is still rich with meaning and magic. We do visioning for the future and create a new beginning for the next seasonal chapter in our lives. And there is so much magic to be had by all.

There are a few elements we are sure to include each year. The weekend begins with an epic spring cleaning. The kids get involved too, Sage chooses whole rooms to be responsible for and Lupine is a helper in several rooms. We clean from morning until mid-day, then cut the kids loose to play a bit before lunch time. Pete and I keep going right through until dinner. While I am a bit of a clutter bug, this is one of the most symbolic and healing traditions. A clean slate. A fresh start. A new beginning.

Then on Sunday, the Spring Bunny/Easter Bunny hides eggs in our yard. Every year the kids reported that this was the best part of the day. We laugh until our sides ache at the silly antics the kids enjoy and the ridiculous places that bunny hides eggs. (In the compost? Really!?) Such an adventure!

And then there is the Wish Bunny. The Wish Bunny is drawn from the Pagan tradition of not only receiving during your Ostara celebration, but of giving as well. Someone needle felted the bunny shown at the top of the post (perhaps late, late and night the night before Easter last year. Ahem.) to replace the five-year old foil-wrapped chocolate bunny we had been using for ages. The Wish Bunny hides away in the yard as well, and when she is found, the child who finds her calls the others to gather around. The wish bunny brings a few special treats (cookies, chocolates, crystals) and each child chooses if they want to give a gift to the bunny, whisper a wish in her ear, and take one of her gifts. I love the wish bunny so much.

And then there are the baskets.

Our baskets have become simplified down to just a few handmade treasures and a small stash of treats. This year the children found an amethyst crystal tucked into a felt bunny pouche (a simplified, last-minute craft inspired by these), wool bunnies in mint tin beds (made from old wool sweaters and inspired by -among others- these, these, these, and these), lupine and sage seeds (how could anyone resist?), and beeswax egg candles. There were a few food-coloring free jelly beans and a small handful of carob covered almonds and some tamari nuts. That was it.

And they were thrilled.

We spent the rest of the day canoeing on a nearby lake in the wind and the sunshine and enjoyed an Easter egg salad picnic in the boat. Such a perfect spring day.

So here's to homegrown magic, to celebrations, and to the warm spring sunshine on our faces. Hope your day was brimming with magic too!

Love,
Rachel

Natural Egg Dyes.

Around here we can't really go wrong with coloring eggs. We could just scribble on them with markers and my kids would be happy. But for me, natural dyes take it over the top. A few veggies, herbs, and teas, some eggs from the farm, and vinegar and we were ready to go. We can actually eat the dye. I think that's awesome.

If you are a parent and you are daunted by the idea of natural dyes, tell me this: how easy is it for your kids to accidentally dye (IE: stain) their clothes? Well, there you go. It's that easy to dye eggs without those little bottles of synthetic dye, too. Easy peasy. All it takes is a bit more time and a tiny bit more patience. (30 minutes of simmering, a bit of a longer soak in the dye bath, and you'll be rocking the natural egg scene.)

Tonight half of our eggs are sleeping in the dye bath. We'll see what super-colors come of the overnight. We grated beets, peeled onions, chopped cabbage, and brewed tea for this holiday craft, among other things. Such fun. Lulu first smelled, then tasted each and every dye lot. (Only the hibiscus tea was sampled without a hilarious face.)

All told we used:

• Hibiscus tea
• Red onion skins
• Yellow onion skins
• Red beets
• Purple cabbage
• Turmeric

I so prefer this to the technicolor ones we used to make! (I worried that my kids wouldn't make the switch from neon to subtle. But they did. Easily. One year of helping make their own dyes and they were hooked.)

If you are looking for some simple natural dye instructions, I recommend this tutorial. It's the simplist one I've seen that will actually work as described. I'll add more pictures tomorrow of the overnight eggs. Until then, wishing you a happy holiday weekend, whatever you celebrate.

From our home to yours, happy spring!

Love,
Rachel

Felt Easter Egg Tutorial. (A re-post.)

And while we're at it, let's re-post this gem too. This was easily our favorite spring craft last year. Easy, quick, and so satisfying. Have fun!

FYI, I've also shared how to make paper mache Easter eggs to hide your treats in, for those who'd like a sewing-free alternative.

Love,
Rachel

 

When Sage was small I thrifted a big bag of plastic easter eggs. I was happy to have something to hide treats in during our spring celebration (and happy to have not purchased them new) but always felt a slight disconnect when I pulled them out each year. They were a little hiccup in our sweet, natural holiday - a bright plastic spot in our woolen and wooden and otherwise earthy spring baskets.

Five springs later I started wondering: could I make a natural replacement for plastic eggs? They would need to be outdoor-friendly and made to contain a tiny treat. I thought about these for weeks last spring until I had an aha! moment and realized how to make them.

Felt Easter Eggs are quick, cute, and infinately reusable. As a bonus the wool felt will stick to tree trunks so you can hide your treats in some unconventional locations! (Cudos to my sister, Titi for this brilliant discovery.) And if you sew with cotton thread and use 100% wool felt any you miss will biodegrade. What more can you ask for?

Felt Easter Egg Tutorial

Materials:

• Small scraps of wool felt
• Contrasting thread
• Hand sewing needle or sewing machine
• Buttons, gems, or other embellishments (optional)

Step 1: Cut out two egg shapes for each woolen egg. Mine are just larger than a chicken egg, approximately 2 1/2" x 3". Cut with a pinking shears or straight shears. The choice is yours. Trim the egg you would like on top to be 1/8" smaller than the bottom egg.

Step 2: Cut an opening 1/3 of the way down from the point of the egg. (Cut the top egg only.) I love the look of a "cracked egg" with a zig-zagging line, but a round hole, an "H" shape, or curvy line works as well. (Do not cut simply a straight line as it can be difficult to get a treat inside without tearing the felt.)

Step 3: Choose yoru embellishments. Mine are wool but we love buttons and any thing sparkly. Especially the sparkly.

Step 4: Set aside the bottom egg. Sew embellishments to the top egg by hand or machine. (My blue flower hides a curvey opening in the yellow egg.)

Step 5: Carefully place the top egg over the bottom egg. Using a contrasting thread, zig-zag or decorative stitch the entire perimiter. Backstitch at the end of your seam.

Your egg is done! You can easily make enough for a backyard egg hunt in an evening. With practice mine took less than five mintues each.

Last spring we kept our felt eggs a secret until our egg hunt was on and the kids were amazed at the woolen eggs that they found. Gentle spring magic, indeed. 

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Check back tomorrow and Monday for handmade paper-mâché easter eggs (another sweet plastic-alternative for your spring celebration) and ideas for simple, natural gifts for your spring baskets! (Or for daily updates follow Clean. on Facebook.)

Love,
Rachel

Making Paper-Mâché Easter Eggs. (A re-post.)

Happy first day of sring! I am sharing a re-post from last year for paper mache easter eggs from last March. We had a (messy) blast making these and they have served us as a fabulous alternative to plastic eggs. Did you make them last year? How did yours turn out?

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So judging by the links and emails and comments you absolutely loved the wool felt Easter egg tutorial! I'm so glad. They really are easy to make - with any sewing experience or skill level. I know many of you are making them already and I wanted to remind you of the LuSa Organics/Clean. flickr photo pool. Share your projects there, won't you?

And yes, at long last, the paper-mâché egg tutorial is finally here! Thanks for your patience while I've spent all of my free time in the garden. Yesterday I pulled out my craft supplies with determination and took them, yes, out into the garden. There in the sunshine and the breeze the kids and I made nearly a dozen refillable eggs. It was good, messy, spring fun.

As an attempt at simplicity I have broken the process down into Phase 1: Make Your Eggs; Phase 2: Open (and Close); Phase 3: Add Some Bling. It will all make sense as we move through the process.  

Before we get started, one thought on planning for time: because of necesity to dry thorougly between steps this is a project that needs to be completed in phases over a couple of days. No phase take exceptionally long, but drying time is necessary between steps. Plan for it!

Phase 1: Make Your Eggs

1. Gather your supplies

• Wooden or plastic eggs or water balloons (I used the few plastic Easter eggs left in our world, but be creative. Even a racket ball would work to create round "eggs".)
• Newsprint or other flexible scrap paper
• paper-mâché paste (recipes below)
• Something oily (coconut oil, Booty Balm, petroleum jelly, anything.)
• Empty egg carton
• Wet and dry rags for wiping hands
• Colored issue paper (optional)
• Scraps of decorative paper (optional)

2. Make your paper-mâché paste. Two options are below. Both work well.

Paper-mâché Glue Recipe

• 2 parts white glue
• 1 part water

Combine ingredients. Ta da! Easy.

Paper-mâché Wheat Recipe

• 1/2 C white wheat flour
• 2 1/2 C water

Combine and boil for three minutes. Cool until comfortable to the touch.

3. Tear newspaper into thin strips. The thinner the better, but it works with wider kid-torn strips too.

4. Lightly oil the outside of your plastic or wooden eggs. This will make removing the paper-mâché easier in Phase 2.

5. Dip strips of paper into paper-mâché, squeegee off with your fingers, and begin wrapping the eggs. Wrap and wrap and wrap some more until there is no plastic or wooden egg peeking out and the entire egg is covered in at least two layers. (We have some covered a with a dozen strips and some covered with three. I'd suggest shooting for the 3-6 layer zone. It will make the egg easy to work with in phases 2 and 3 but sturdy for Phase Egg Hunt.)

6. After you are pleased with the amount of coverage roll the egg in your hands to smooth out the bits of paper that are poking out. Roll and roll around in your hands "just like you're washing up with soap," says Lupine. As the photo above will testify, you will get all gooey and need to wash up with some real soap very soon.

7. If you are covering your eggs with tissue or decorative paper, now is the time. Because the tissue is so thin there is no need to dip in the paste. Simply stick to the already moist egg. Cover first with a couple of layers of white tissue and then colored. (The white will hide the printing on the newspaper. Decorative paper can be applied directly on top of newspaper as it is opaque.) If needed, dip your fingers in the paper-mâché paste and smooth a little on the outside of the tissue paper to help it stick smoothly.

8. When you are satisfied with your egg wipe off any excess paste with your hand and place completed eggs in an empty egg carton. As they dry move them around now and then to be sure they aren't sticking to the carton. 

9. Wash up. You're a mess. But it was fun, right? Phase 1 is complete.

Phase 2: Open (and Close)

Did you let your eggs dry thoroughly? You should. It is much easier to do step 2 with completely dry eggs. I hurried the process a bit to bring you this tutorial today (and only two days late), but in a perfect world I would have let the eggs dry longer. Just sayin'.

1. Gather your supplies.

• empty toilet paper tube or other thin cardboard
• Utility or craft knife
• Tacky or white glue
• clothespins (spring type)
• Decorative ribbon

2. Carefully slice into the (completely dry) paper-mâché around the equator of your egg. (I like to leave a 1/2" section uncut so that my egg has a hinged lid.) Look for any areas where you did not completely cut through the paper and cut again. Gently Squeeze the egg and the paper-mâché should slip apart at the slice you just made, revealing the wooden or plastic egg beneath. (Note: if you used a balloon cut your equator line knowing that you will pop your balloon.)

3. Gently squeeze the egg more firmly until you can grab hold of the top half of your paper egg and remove it. Then grab that slippery egg from inside and pull it out. It will be greasy and cold and feel kind of icky but whatever. It's just a fake egg. And there it is. Your homemade paper-mâché egg! Satisfying, isn't it?

 

4. Using scissors or your craft knife, cut your toilet paper tube down its length and open. Cut a slice from one end, approximately 1/2" or 1 cm wide. Apply a narrow band of glue inside the bottom half of your egg and insert the cardboard strip. Leave 1/2 of it peeking up above the edge.

Note: depending on the size of your plastic or wooden egg there will likely be either a gap or an overlap of this cardboard band. Both are fine. Just angle the cardboard edge so that it narrows as it comes out of the egg a bit rather than becomes more wide than the egg opening. The cardboard will give the top of the egg something to grab onto and will help your eggs stay closed. If it flares out it will prevent the egg from closing at all.

Pinch the edges of the egg and band with clothespins to hold it in place until the glue is dry.

Phase 2. Done. Voila.

Phase 3: Add Some Bling (mostly optional)

Personally I think even the newsprint eggs are awesome, as are the plain kraft paper ones pictured at the top and bottom of this post. But if you want to add some fancy to your eggs this is the time. (Wait until the glue from Phase 2 is dry inside of your egg before proceeding.)

1. Gather your supplies

• Ribbon
• Paint (optional)
• Glitter (optional)
• Glue or Mod Podge (optional)
• Decorative paper (optional)

2. Paint, glitter, and glue your egg, inside and out. Be as wild or as mild as you are. Allow your embellishments to dry completely perched in an empty egg carton. If desired coat the entire outside of your egg with outdoor Mod Podge. I didn't do this but if your eggs will be out in the rain it isn't a bad idea.

3. After the egg is thorougly dry attach the ribbon. The ribbon will also help insure that your egg remains closed during your egg hunt or when tucked in a spring basket. On the "back" of your egg (this is arbitrary unless you left a bit of paper-mâché connecting the top and bottom) attach a 12" - 18" length of ribbon with tacky glue to the bottom half of the egg near the opening. Allow to dry.

Your eggs are ready to use! Hide a treat inside (I shared some ideas over here last week), tie your bow, and hide the eggs. Note: If your ribbon (like mine below) was cut a little short it will still work. Simply tie a loose knot rather than a bow to close your egg.

P.S. I also shared a wool felt egg tutorial and a simplified spring basket post last week to take your spring celebration to a whole different (gentle, natural, wholesome) level. Happy Easter/Eostar/Spring to your families! ~ Rachel

Our Favorite Valentine Craft. (A repost.)

Yes, we're at it again. The valentine babies. Every year (after pink steamers, colored with a little beet juice) we make some sweet Valentine craft. But we keep coming back to this one.

Pete even made an emergency craft-run to the grocery store at 7:00. (It went something like, "Hey girl, I'd be happy to slam my coffee, skip breakfast, and hurry out into the cold to buy match boxes for you and the kids to decoupage. Those little heart babies you make are so cute.")

Really he did. (Okay, he didn't say it but he did run to the store for me. Best valentine ever.)

Oh, and here's a tip I learned since the last time we made these: you can make your own Mod Podge by mixing 1/2 white glue and 1/2 water. Yes, really. We tried it and it worked beautifully. And now I saved you $4. Woo hoo!

This year we're also painting the boxes with a little white paint first so that we can use light-colored fabrics without the matchbox printing showing through. And now you know.

Hope your day is filled with sweetness of your own making!

Love,
Rachel

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Matchbox babies are one of our favorite craft projects any time of year, but these wee ones are especially sweet for Valentine's Day. As you look ahead to your weekend, perhaps you'll find time to make some of these sweeties.

P.S. If you insert a strong needle threaded with embroidery floss through the top and bottom of the box slider (not the bed) about 1/3 of the way down and tie the thread about twice as long as the box, you can make your drawer open as if by magic when you pull the string.

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We started a new tradition this morning: Jammie Craft. Smoothies, fruit, toast, scissors, glitter, and glue - all while we're still in our PJs. I know. It sounds like a disastrous mix. But it was wonderful!

With Valentine's day on the horizon we collectively came up with this project: Heart Babies.

A simple (kid-friendly) tutorial follows:

Supplies:

Wool Felt * Wooden beads * Acorn caps

Thread * Paper * Fabric scraps

Cotton or wool stuffing * Glue

Small match boxes * Glitter

Mod Podge * Paint brush * Needle *Scissors

The Box Top: Cut a strip of paper and a strip of fabric as wide as your matchbox. Cut long enough to allow 2/3" overlap. Coat matchbox cover with Mod Podge and wrap with paper. (This will keep the matchbox printing from showing through the fabric). Secure overlap area with additional Mod Podge.

Coat the papered matchbox with Mod Podge and wrap neatly with fabric. Trim edges as needed. Coat again with Mod Podge and apply glitter if desired.

The Bed: Cut the fabric lining for your matchbox bed. To do so you can sacrifice one match box to make a pattern by slitting at the corners and pressing flat, or use or method and guesstimate. Notch out corners.

Mod Podge the inside of the box and carefully press lining into place.

Baby: Cut out two identical hearts suitably sized to fit into your matchbox. Select a head-sized bead. Check if the bead will fit in the box with the lid closed. If not, select a smaller head or don't sweat it and let the box stay partially open.

Beginning at the "neck" area of the heart (top/center), use a running stitch or a blanket stitch to sew hearts together. Stuff with a bit of cotton or wool before closing. Sew bead to heart as follows: Heart, bead, scrap of felt (to secure head). Sew the head to body securely with a few stitches and tie off. Cut thread.

Select an acorn cap sized appropriately for your bead head. Coat top of head (including felt scrap) with a generous amount of glue and press acorn cap into place. Wipe off excess glue with a cotton swab or your fingertip.

 

After glue and Mod Podge has dried, tuck baby into bed.

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

 Note: If you think these are lovely, please check back often. We're pretty crafty around here and have lots more sweetness to share. xo Rachel

In the kitchen: Gloppy goo and burning bananas.

(It's all good. I promise.)

Homeschooling. Some days are delightfully ordinary. Lots of books, some real-life math and writing, also games, walks, crafts, art, and the work of life - cooking and cleaning. But other days you will find us (or some of us anyway) extracting DNA from vegetables; looking at skin cells, compost slime, and crystals with the microscope; making silly putty from scratch; and yes, even lighting things on fire. So. Much. Fun. Not a shabby deal I've got myself here, hanging with my kids all day making mindful-mischief.

The glop pictured above is Sage's latest science foray. Polymers. There are dozens of recipes for homemade goo, flubber, and silly putty all over the internet. My kids were partial to the gorilla video we found on Instructables. We tried several recipes and made all sorts of disgusting creations. Amazing what a nine year old can create with a little glue, starch, and borax.

We've recently purchased a few simple science books for Sage. We looked at several chemistry sets and curriculum but ultimately decided on this book (which looked fun to both of us) and this one which seemed to make buying a chemistry set unnecessary for the time being. We both liked that. (While this book looks fascinating to us we decided to wait on it for a while, considering that the experiments in it might actually kill us.)

Sage is mildly obsessed with chemistry and experiments. I'm enjoying watching his interest and knowledge deepen and am grateful that we have the time and space to let him learn this way. There is no question that he has a inextinguishable love of learning. And as unschoolers we see that as the primary goal of education - to help grow adults with a passion for learning. (Yes, more so than learning what an acid-base reaction is.)

As for fire, there is plenty of that around here too. Sage and Pete attempted to make glass out of sand today (with a butane torch and a shovel of sand from the sandbox). They succeeded in making red hot sand but it did not turn to glass. This "failure" led them to a chemistry book researching glass, elements, and alchemy-versus-science for an hour.

And then there were the flaming bananas. This the kids look forward to February 2 straight on through January. They count down to it like others do to Christmas. It is a part of (okay, most of) our annual Bridgid celebration, a day most of you know better as "Groundhog Day".

Groundhog Day, like so many of the holidays we celebrate in our culture is a modern interpretation of an ancient Pagan holiday. February 2 marks the half-way point between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox and was traditionally a fire celebration as the sun grew stronger and the days grew longer. It is a day to dream and hope and plan - a day to focus on what is yet to come in the days ahead and celebrate the return of the warmth. We talk at lenghth of what the new seasons will bring. It is a new year of sorts.

Pagan traditions aside, I say - what is a holiday without dessert? So every year we make homemade ice cream (a modification of my Gram's vanilla custard recipe), and Bananas Foster. Sage always throws in the match. (And thankfully, this year Pete's arm hair was spared!)

So there you go. Glop and fire. Welcome to my kitchen. My messy, crazy, adventuresome kitchen.

Home again.

Family = love.

My children adore my family. And I do, too. We spent three days at my parent's house - my childhood home - to celebrate the Christmas holiday together. There were so many snuggles, countless books, and one very special Nanny-Lupine date to the ballet. (Um, and also a little Bumpy- (my dad) Sage time at the shooting range, but that seems somehow less... poetic and Christmas-y.)

All-in-all it was a simple, sweet holiday. The dogs all got along and the kids were doted on, yet somehow they came home with almost (almost!) no stuff. Hooray, for my family. I love you all so much!

I hope your weekend was equally blessed, peppered with the magic of your own (unique and quirky) families.

xo Rachel

P.S. Pete made this Tom and Jerry mix for my parent's for their Christmas gift. Um, yum. I just thought you should know.

Joy!

Wishing you a simple, peaceful, joy-filled holiday.

Love,
Rachel and family

Recreating Tradition.

I'm Norweigian. Mostly. Er, energetically anyway. Regardless of the actual percentage, culturally I am Norwegian. And today I'm standing here in my Norwegian great-grandmother's apron and thinking about holiday traditions.

Since going grain-free/gluten-free about year ago I've begun to long for the old standards. Especially during the holidays. Lefse. Krumkake. Rosettes. So this year I decided: grains be damned, I'm having a traditional holiday.

Today Lupine pulled out the rosette iron. My grandma's. Yes. We'll figure it out. Gluten-free rosettes sound easier than grain-free bread in my opinion.

Lefse. That's my real love. My Gram and I made it together each year until she died. During the last year or two she spent most of her time at her round kitchen table, entertaining baby Sage while I made the lefse alone. And then she died. And the lefse making fell entirely to me for my family. I missed her humor when I made it without her, and her coffee and request to "eat ourselves sick on the trims". Last year life got in the way and I skipped lesfse making altogether (the first year ever, perhaps). That felt like such a downer when Solstice and Christmas came and there was no lefse on the table. So this year I'm thinking... can I do it gluten-free? We shall see.

Tonight we stated slow. Thumb-prints. Grain-free, sugar-free thumbprints. I used this recipe as my jumping off place, subbing in 1/3 C of honey for the sweetener, a blend of homemade butter and coconut oil for the palm oil, and my homemade raspberry jam for store-bought.

The result? Yum. Even gram would agree.

(An unrelated side note: Thank you for your comments and emails after my last post. It was pretty heavy. I don't normally go into that shadow space but for this I needed to - it feels like an important part of my process towards healing. Sage is well this morning. His fever finally gone, and the promise of a quiet day together in the kitchen is lifting my spirits. xo Rachel)

Thankful.

Thankful for...

The cacophony of my life and the unexpected moments of quiet;

Sweet wiggly snuggles and the space to stretch out alone;

The satisfaction of a full pantry and the promise of next year in our empty backyard garden;

Casting on and casting off;

The sparkle of those playful eyes by day and the rosy glow of those cheeks at night;

and finding balance. In all things.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends. I am grateful for each of you. You show up here and read my words and create a new layer of meaning in this quiet little life of mine. And you share your own inspiration as well. Friends. All around the world. Just by typing away here at my screen. And for that I am so grateful.

In love, light, and gratitude,

Rachel

xoxo

P.S. We'll be making another Gratitude Tree tomorrow. I hope some of you will join me!