Ah! That happy moment when a creation is completed!

Wednesday, December 5, 2012. 9am – 11am. In this cold and foggy morning, our craft group gathered in the back room of the Company of Angels store to pull and make “Magic Wool Fairies”. I love it when we are in this cozy, intimated little room, people open up more and it is a warm and jolly friendly atmosphere.

For a $7 supply fee, we had access to binsful of colored roving, pipe cleaners, trims, notions, sequin, beads and other supplies galore to make our craft for today. Some of us worked on more items to stock our school’s Winter Festival coming up this Saturday.

Christine Newell taught us the craft and Rachel Skelly made sure we were well taken care of with hot tea and refreshments. Thank you Christine and Rachel! – Jzin

This Saturday, our school will be having its annual Winter Festival. See Winter Festival 2013 here.

This year, Winter Festival will be held on Saturday, 1pm – 5pm, December 8, 2012. The children will have a special opportunity to go inside the “Elves Workshop” to pick out their choice of handmade gifts, without being accompanied by their parents. These children will “pay” for their selections with raffle tickets.

More info: PDF file of WSOC Winter Festival 2012 Booth Offerings.

Menu

• Our creative journey today:
• Please feel free to leave comments on the bottom of the page. Share with us your crafting process, insights, experiences, etc.
  • Today we made Magic Wool Fairies. We miss Kirsten who is at home with new baby boy.
  • Book reference: Magic Wool Fairies by Christine Schäfer
  • Pictorial Tutorial! If you missed it, do not fret. Jzin the avid photographer has captured our Christine in her steps of Making A Magic Wool Fairy.
  • More Handmade Items for Winter Festival 2012 Elves Workshop
    • Heather’s felt bags
    • Josephine’s Festive Paper Ball Christmas Tree Ornaments
    • Gloria’s Amazing Ball with Needle-Felted Fawn
    • Alena’s Glorious Blossom Fairies
  • Julie’s Magic Wool Fairy
  • Gloria’s Red-Hearts Magic Wool Fairy
  • Rachel’s Magic Wool Fairy
  • Christine’s Magic Wool Fairy Which We Used As A Reference
  • Antoinette’s Magic Wool Fairy
  • Heather’s Magic Wool Fairy
  • Sharon’s Magic Wool Fairy
  • Angela’s Guardian Angel Fairy
  • Josephine’s Guardian Angel For Her Little Girl
  • Alena’s Spring Magic Wool Fairy
  • Jzin’s Guardian Angel For Her Children
  • My Friend Marie’s Softearth’s Art Etsy Store in New Zealand
• Next week’s Craft Group Project
• Mere hours and minutes left on Jzin’s handmade doll giveaway. Please share it with your facebook friends. Thank you! You can copy and paste this link into your facebook wall…

Giveaway !!! Handmade Mermaid Doll by CastleofCostaMesa.Com Fall 2012

• The Company of Angels store is all decked out for Christmas. Come visit.
• Jzin’s recent Homemade Traditional Chinese Fairy Tale Puppet Show performed last week for her child’s birthday!!!
• Do you own a blog, Etsy store, family business, soap box, etc? Place a free ad on “Support Our Local Southern Californian Waldorf Community Page.
• Craft Shopping This Holiday Season
• Jzin’s little one in Nutcracker Ballet, Festival Ballet Theater Performing at UCI.
• Gallery of past crafts from our craft group.

Gallery of Past Projects from Our Waldorf School of Orange County Monday Morning Craft Group

Click on below picture to see a gallery of our past craft group projects.

You can “like” and follow our weekly craft group projects on facebook here.

Today we made Magic Wool Fairies

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

 Book Reference: Magic Wool Fairies by Christine Schäfer

You can buy a copy from the school store or online.

Magic Wool Fairies by Christine Schäfer

Excerpt: Magic Wool Fairies by Christine Schäfer

Excerpt: Magic Wool Fairies by Christine Schäfer

Excerpt: Magic Wool Fairies by Christine Schäfer

Sweet Little Solana, our littlest crafter today.

More Handmade Items for Winter Festival 2012 Elves Workshop

Felt Bags Handmade by Heather

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

Josephine’s Festive Paper Ball Christmas Tree Ornaments

Click here to see Josephine’s Christmas ornaments and other handmade treasures at our Waldorf School 2012 Winter Festival Elves Workshop.

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

Gloria’s Beautiful Ball with Needle-Felted Fawn

Gloria needle-felted not one but TWO baby deer on this felted ball, one fawn on each side! This is amazing workmanship.

It will go to a lucky little child at the Elves Workshop this weekend.

Click here to see this and other handmade treasures at our Waldorf School 2012 Winter Festival Elves Workshop.

Click here to see more Felted Balls done by our craft group.

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

Alena’s Amazing Blossom Fairies

Alas, my dear friend Alena is bitten hard by the crafting bug! Last night, this wonderful woman gave up sleep to finish these exquisite flock of blossom fairies in time for our Winter Festival Elves Workshop. One behalf of the children whose little hearts will leap with joy at the sight of these, thank you, Alena!!!

This one may be my favorite…

“Less than perfection” is a concept foreign to the mind of this crafter. My case in point: glitter hearts. Oooo !

These are truly sweet honey for the eye and soul!

Little blossom fairies playing hide and seek in the cherimoya tree in front of The Company of Angels school store…

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

Julie’s Magic Wool Fairy

I.e., the famous author of “The Waldorf Palette Cookbook“, a fundraiser for The Waldorf School of Orange County, Costa Mesa, California, USA.

Decorated with sparkly hearts!

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

Gloria’s Red Hearts Magic Wool Fairy

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

Rachel’s Magic wool fairy

Completed!

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

Christine’s Magic wool fairy Which We Used As A Reference

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

Antoinette’s Magic wool fairy

Antoinette also just published a book. You can find out more about her book or purchase it on this link here: I Love You Bigger Than the Whole Wide World.

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

Heather’s Magic wool fairy

Heather had to leave early so I took a picture of her unfinished fairy. Beautiful!

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

Sharon’s Magic wool fairy

Voila! That happy moment when the creation is completed!

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

Angela’s Guardian Angel Fairy

She hovers from heaven and gazes downward protectively upon us.

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

Josephine’s Guardian Angel For Her Little Girl

Last year, Josephine made a guardian angel magic wool fairy for her daughter, which kept watched over the little girl the entire year.

This year, Josephine is making a new one for her. This angel will rest on top of their family’s Christmas tree this year.

Here is Josephine’s blog 柳橙海岸记事, in mandarin chinese!

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

Alena’s Spring Magic Wool Fairy

Handmade Mommy and Me Love!

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

Jzin’s guardian Angel For Her Children

I did not finish this angel by 12pm today. So I took it home to work on it some more.

Thursday, December 6, 2012. I have finished making this angel. She will go on top of our family Christmas tree this year.

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

My Friend Marie’s Magic Wool Fairies In Her Etsy Store

My friend Marie handmakes these Magic Wool Fairies in New Zealand, the Land of Wool! Here is a link to her blog: Softearth’s World.

She sells her handmade crafts here: http://felt.co.nz/shop/softearthart

She also has an Etsy store, however, as we are entering Winter here in the northern hemisphere, Marie is taking her summer vacation on her Etsy store. Check back later.

 

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

Tutorial: Magic Wool Fairies

If you missed our craft get together, do not fret. Buy the book above or check out this simple tutorial! Thank you Christine Newell for showing us how to Make Magic Wool Fairies.

We started with the head. There are 2 ways to make a head. (1) Using a wooden bead as the core, wrapped by roving. This is a faster way to make a round head. This method, you may not even use a needle for the entire process. Pro: Easy, fast. Con: Harder to shape the face with a needle if you later want to shape it by needle-felting. This angel was made using a wooden bead as core of the head.

Method (2) No wooden beads. Take a piece of roving and tie a knot unto itself in the middle. Add roving to that knot to form a ball shaped head. Bring the ball shape to desired size. Neede-felt as needed to help maintain a ball shape.

Today we made our magic wool fairies with wooden bead in the middle of the head.

Fold a pipe cleaner in half. Bend each arm in the opposite direction until you have a kink in the middle of your pipe cleaner long enough to stick inside the wooden bead.

 Attach wooden bead to the “kink”. Now you have a head and two arms.

To make a nice blank “face”, wrap a flat layer of roving over the ball, careful that you do not have bumps or dirt on the “face” area. (If you want a flesh colored fairy, you may use flesh colored roving instead of white. In my case, I layer a very thin layer of pinkish roving over my white for the face.)

If you want a smooth and nice “face” be careful with arranging your roving flatly and tightly on the wooden bead (you will be unable to needle-felt the face very much after this, if your “face” is loosely wrapped). Take a part of your “tail” roving and tightly tie at the neck.

If you plan to make a fairy with a skirt that is not white in color, you may trim/pull away your long white roving tail at this point. Christine planned to make a fairy with a yellow skirt, this is how short she left her white roving “tail”.

Note by Jzin: For those who prefer to use a felt ball instead of a wooden bead (you can’t felt a wooden bead and the wool roving may slide on slippery ball if you do not tie it just so). You can purchase felt balls online if you do not want to make them yourself.

I just bought mine from FELT SUPPLIER (Poland) on Etsy.Com. I find the 3cm felt ball in “Peach 22” color is just perfect for my magic wool fairies. you can purchase from them by clicking on the image below.

FELT SUPPLIER from Poland on Etsy.Com. These balls are helpful for my 8 year old to make her own dolls since it is hard for her to make a good ball shape for a doll head.

Now we make the hands: Starting at about 1/2 inch from the end of one arm, wind a thin layer of roving onto the pipe cleaner, working towards the direction away from the head.

Once your roving holds on to the pipe cleaner, fold about 3/4 inch (eye ball it, this is not rocket science) of pipe cleaner back towards the direction of the head. Continue winding over this fold and towards the direction of the head. * Be careful to use flat layer of roving, so your hand looks nice and even. Again, you may use flesh colored roving here as well.

Ditto the other hand.

Adding red sleeves: Wind flat layer (not too thick) of roving starting at the cuffs and work in the direction towards the head.

Red sleeves added.

Sharon adding thin, flat layer of red roving over the white, to make red sleeves for her fairy.

Dressing the fairy doll. Make a hold and poke the head through the roving.

There are several ways to attach the hair. (1) glue it on (2) needle-felting (3) sewing.

Pinching white roving in the middle to make wings.

Adding wings. Again, you can needle-felt it, glue it or sew it on. I sewn mine one for extra security.

To add a branch of flowers, wrap colored roving onto pipe cleaner. If you are making a forked branch, arrange the two pieces of pipe cleaners to how you want it to look in the final state, then wrap colored roving around these two, holding the two pipe cleaners together as you decorate/”color” them with the colored roving.

Sharon demonstrating the making of branch with colored roving and pipe cleaner.

Example of a fairy holding a bouqout of flowers (Handmade by Josephine).

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page.

Please “Like” my facebook page

Please “Like” me on facebook (top left sidebar of this page). You will be connected to what we do here via facebook. Thank you! – Jzin

Support Our Local Waldorf Community/ Place a Free Ad

If you are interested in placing an ad on “Support Our Southern California Waldorf Community” (free if you are a member of this community) please e-mail me a good picture and a link.

Meanwhile, please support our local peeps! Thanks! – Jzin

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

Next Week’s Craft Group Project

Sorry! It is a mystery to me also! If you find out, let me know! How I do love surprises… 🙂 – Jzin

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page.

Craft Supply Shopping This Holiday Season

One of my most favorite craft store in town (besides The Company of Angels, Jenny’s fabric, Suzoo’s Wool Works) is having financial difficulties. I would hate to see it close. So please, everyone support Piecemakers in Costa Mesa. Here is a big fat coupon. You can bring a crafting buddy and split it in two ways.

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

A Homemade “Traditional Chinese Fairy Tale Puppet Show” that the children and I performed recently for my child’s 8th birthday.

Click on the pictures to see our recent homemade puppet show.

It was an inspiring story, about the true nature of transactions … Laibao’s Quest for a Bride.

My handmade Fairy Tale Dolls: Dolls and Tales page.

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!

My handmade dolls for Waldorf Seasons Nature Table

All Seasons

 

Giveaway!!! Handmade Mermaid Doll. Ending on December 7, 2012

Click here to Enter. Giveaway ends December 7, 2012 12am Pacific Standard Time.

Please tell your friends about it. Thank you very much! – Jzin

Click here to jump back to the menu on the top of the page. Whee!