I was in craft heaven on Saturday. Surrounded by felt, fabric, wool, paper, paint, wood and tools. In a hall with lots of families including my own. And we all were there to craft beautiful things for our homes and our loved ones out of natural materials. I ask you, does it get any better than that? The morning was the perfect antidote to the Christmas consumerism that was beginning to infect my soul.
The craft morning was run by Carol, Ed and Nikki and their angel helpers. It began with a circle, a song and story. You could then hop from craft station to craft station as the mood took you, sampling the many different crafts available. The crafts included origami, paper marbling, wood work outdoors with hand tools and fallen branches; the sewing table with zippers, needles, threads and pieces of hand dyed wool blankets; and the felting area where you could make a candle holder or an angel for your Christmas tree.
My first stop was the wood working station. I had been wanting to make a wooden holder for my beeswax candles for a while. Last week I pulled out sheets of beeswax to make some more candles and discovered a stash of dipped candles we made a couple of years ago. They had been waiting for a holder all this time. Ed had brought along some beautiful pieces of wood from a fallen branch. I was so excited to turn it into a candle holder using a hand drill for the first time. I muddled along, not really knowing what I was dong. I wasn't sure which way to turn it or how to make it work. I started getting impatient and frustrated. It was when I decided to let go of my impatience and embrace the process that the drill bit into the wood.
I was keen to whittle a crochet hook but the other crafts were calling so I headed back into the hall where I met up with Miss 13 and her bestie. They were trying to turn pieces of felt into a woven heart. We didn't know what we were doing but had a lot of fun trying to work it out. Eventually my girl went and asked for help and came back and taught me. It was perfect timing – it's one of our family traditions to gift the girls with an ornament each year and when they were little I used to make them felt decorations. The other day I pulled out the box of decorations and realised it had been some years since anything handmade was added to the collection.
The paper marbling table was busy so I decided to make a felted candle holder even though I'm not a huge fan of the process of wet felting. By the time I got to the wet and squishing stage, time was beginning to run out. I panicked and abandoned my felting and headed to the marbling station. Luckily for me, while I was gone, Nikki finished it of for me.
Marbling was amazing. Swirling the paint on the surface of the water then laying down the fabric or paper to reveal incredible patterns. The whole family was obsessed with marbling and we've come home with quite a stash of fabric and paper. I'm sure it will come in useful for a future project.
I haven't been in such a beautiful setting with my family since the girls were little. It was so wonderful to be back in that beautiful, heart-warming space surrounded by other families all intent on creating with love.