Natural Suburbia Giveaway...

I love having giveaways! Today I am having a giveaway from my blog. Everything in the photo below is included in the giveaway including this little fairy mushroom house that I have just designed, with a little chimney. I will be posting the pattern on my blog on Wednesday for everyone to enjoy, when the winner of the giveaway is announced:)

All the giveaway items! Below are separate photos of the items so that you can see exactly what is included...

The top skein is a skein of double knitting hand dyed cotton dyed in rainbow pastel colours by a local dyer in South Africa and the skein below that, is an almost chunky skein of Merino yarn that has been hand dyed and hand spun by local spinners here in South Africa, the dyeing and spinning of this Merino yarn is part of a community upliftment project and creates work opportunities for many people...

A Merino roving hand dyed in South Africa...

Handmade and hand dyed green 100% pure wool felt and 8 colours of fleece perfect for needlefelting... All made locally in SA.

A hand carved crochet hook made by a wood craftsman in the area...

If you would like to enter this giveaway, please leave a comment below, if you would like to be entered an extra three times then as well as leaving a comment please become a follower on my blog and Tweet about this giveaway on Twitter or blog about it. If you do, don't forget to come back and either email or let me know somehow that you have spread the word... Please remember that if your Blogger profile is unavaliable, you need to leave an email address so that I can contact you to let you know that you have won:)

The winner will be announced on Wednesday 23rd of December... Open to everyone, worldwide!

I feel very honoured and blessed to share this giveaway with everyone, enjoy...

Warmly
Linda

Bees...

The other day we were all out in the garden and we noticed quite a few bees swarmimg around our really tall Oak tree. We had, a few months previously, placed an Owl box high up in our tree, no owls ever came to live there, but to our amazement, an entire swarm of bees have moved into the owl box and the honey is literally dripping out as you can see in this last photo along the side of the opening to the box.

It has been a wonderful experience for our children, we have learned so much about bees, their habits etc...  I have been in contact with one of the honey farms down the road from our home for more information, they have mentioned that our municipality does not allow bee hives within residential areas and they have advised us to have the owl box removed for the saftey of our family. Apparently, even mowing the lawn could stress them and trigger them to swarm. They will be coming early next week in the early evening to take the owl box, the bees will be relocated to their honey farm and incorporeted into the swarms that they have there. They were so helpful and have the best interest of the bees at heart so my children and I are very relieved... We have so enjoyed these amazing creatures being a part of our lives and will miss them...

Have you ever had a swarm come and take up residence at your home, I would love to hear your experience...
Have a wonderful weekend...

Giveaway:
Tomorrow I will be posting a LARGE giveaway for my Mamma4earth Shop, so pop by my blog tomorrow evening to enter...

Our Garden's Bounty and Christmas Ornaments...

We have been busy harvesting our peaches from our modest peach tree. Erin was helping me to pack them into our basket to be taken inside to finish ripening and later enjoyed by our family. We tasted some today and they are exceptionally sweet, very exciting indeed. Our peach tree is quite small but has given us the most juicy fruit this year. We also fed these fruit trees worm tea at the beginning of their fruiting season and the results are astounding...

Kye has a favourite tree in the garden that he loves to climb, a Pride of India (Koelreuteria Paniculata), it is such a pretty tree when in bloom and just the perfect size of a budding mounatineer...

Erin was busy with handwork today, she gathered her materials, decided on a project and went about putting everything together, she made a felt purse, with an embroidered leaf and sewed on a button on the other side in matching green to fasten...

Tomorrow evening we will be visiting with good friends for a supper and a carol evening in the park... We all have to bring a gift that can't cost anything to make and it needs to be some form of recycled clothing... A few days ago I saw a lovely Thrifted Christmas Tree that Morningsunrae had made, you can find the tutorial here at The Long Thread. I thought this tree would work quite well for the Christmas gift swap at our carol evening. So today, Jen, Erin, Caiden and I sat down together at the craft table and created this special tree from thrifted clothing and scarves. It was wonderful to work together and create something from recycled clothing. We were all thrilled with how it turned out, it is really quick and easy to make...

Awesome Giveaway on over at The Magic Onions:

How To Make a God's Eye Woven Christmas Ornament

Today we are making God's Eye or Ojo De Dios Ornaments. It is such fun and they look so pretty when they are finished.

I took 2 sticks from our garden outside and tied them with some sheep wool securely.

With some brightly coloured handspun Merino yarn, I start to wind around the twigs and all the rainbow colours in the wool start to show, making a pretty pattern. Continue going around and around until your sticks are almost full of wool, then tie off and make a loop to hang your ornament.

Metarials:

2 sticks to make a cross
yarn to tie your sticks
colourful yarn
beads (optional)

They do look lovely on a Christmas tree or just as pretty ornaments. Adding beads would also give it a creative flair:)

Butterfly Migration...

Yesterday was a wonderfil day, we were outside in the warm afternoon sunshine, when suddenly there were hundreds of White Butterflies surrounding us. We realised that this was a migration of White Butterflies (Pieridae). We witnessed this beautiful act of nature unfolding before our eyes and then went to look in our reference books to glean some information about them. We discovered that they migrate on mass, NE across South Africa in the summer, the males are faster as the females stop every now and then to lay eggs. Some of them were still on our friut trees this morning when we were on our way to feed our chickens and rabbits. They then took flight to follow the faster male companions to their destination.

It was amazing to be immersed in this complete occurrence of nature... We all just stood there, amazed and absorbed in this moment....

PS.
Meg over at Sew Liberated has done a feature on my Mamma4earth shop...

Have a lovely week :)

This Advent Week...

We have been having a lovely crafty week during this second week of Advent, this is our centrepiece on our diningroon table, with our stones and pine cones in the centre.

Here is our nature and Advent table in our playroom, with our donkey in the stable in the meantime and our candles that were lovingly decorated by our little ones and all our precious shells, stones and flowers and pine cones...

A Christmas gift I have been busy working on, it is a pair of fingerless gloves for someone... I have knitted the wrist area in Angora that I handspun and then the rest of the glove is knitted in a DK Merino yarn...

Everyone is happily decorating their Advent candles, we have four children so it works out quite well, each one has a turn for a week to light their Advent candle, this Sunday it is Caiden's turn for the Animal Kingdom... great excitement, I love how much enrichment these special days bring to our lives...

Jenna and Erin's decorated Advent candles, Erin's represents the Plant Kingdom and Jenna's the Mineral Kingdom...

One of our Advent gifts this week was a tea party with scones under our generously tall Oak Tree, Kye got there first....

Gathered up his feast and went to eat them in his favourite spot in the kitchen...

Our new pigs, Miss Penelope Pig and Sally Saddleback Pig... I have been thinking about adding hats to our pigs, Jenna has designed and made the first hat for Penelope, and I love it :)

Have a wonderful weekend everyone...

Handmade Christmas Ornaments...

Today we decided to make these citrus and cinnamon Christmas ornaments. Our home has this beautiful fragrance wafting throughout, it is heavenly...

Erin is busy with her ornament...

We decided to hang them in our kitchen so we can enjoy them...

To make:

You need a few oranges,

Cinnamon sticks,

Golden thread, or thread of your choice,

Thick wool needle,

Pin hammer,

Acorns etc...

We dried out our orange slices in the oven on a low heat and added some ground cinnamon to the slices.

Knock the wool needle through the cinnamon stick to make an opening and then thread the needle with your strand of golden thread and attach the orange slice to the stick. We also now added an acorn etc... to our ornament and tied them all together. Tie a little knot with your thread and your ornament is ready to hang up for everyone to see... Enjoy!