Another Rainbow

I'm falling in love with the Waldorf Pedagogy. Our upcoming new year changes will include a nature table in our home. In my daydreaming about our nature table I imagine all sorts of beautiful wooden creatures interspersed with candles and twigs and leaves from our garden. I have long admired Grimm's Spiel Und Holz products, so simple and beautiful. My nephew has their set of nesting elements and I love their ability to be a decoration and an open-ended toy, a fun toy at that! They are made of wood and have non-toxic coloring on them that is beautiful and bright. I want the whole set on my coffee table. I bought the rainbow set above as a Christmas present for Q, all the milestone books tell me my child should be nesting and stacking things, and really they were just so pretty I wanted them myself.

Inspired by Grimm's Spiel Und Holz stuff I set out to find some nesting toys for our house. Looking at gorgeous handmade sets in a number of shops on etsy I stumbled across the shop Clickity Clack. They have a variety of nesting toys that are unfinished and are at a really great price.

I got a few sets of the nesting items for our family and I also got some of their other beautiful unfinished wood items.


How cool is that castle? It could be painted in so many different ways. And it would be especially fun with some dragons


I love this stuff because it's a perfect combination of making your own toys and buying them. I plan on painting ours with some watercolors which are great for painting wood safely and beautifully.

I promise I'll come back and update with pictures once we sand and paint ours but I just had to share now because I just got them in the mail. I'm thinking warm weather would be a nice time to sit outside and sand these down to be nice and soft for a toddler.

Yet Another Toy For The Boy

The little one has been obsessed with strings, straps, power cords, thread, yarn, and all things long and skinny and easy to grab. Tired of having my computer unplugged I whipped up a little toy for him.

A little shooting star.

It's just two pieces of felt, dark blue and light blue, zig-zag stitched closed with some sewn up strings from scraps I had around. I stuffed it with cut up pieces of plastic shopping bags to give it a little crinkle. It was a hit for the first 15 minutes, then ignored for a few days but whenever he spots one of those strings he has to pull on it and see what he can do with them

Here's a ball for baby

small and soft and round...

Made from this tutorial. The tutorial was super quick and easy. Q's favorite toys lately are balls, he chases them all around the house and gets so frustrated when they roll under the couch or the dresser. He loves the wet felted balls I had made for him when he was a little guy and I love how this sewn felt ball looks in its beautiful bright rainbow colors. I'd love to make another in some nice autumn hues.

Finds of the Fair

I've been meaning to share this cute find for the past few weeks but they've been such a hit around our house that they follow Q around everywhere.
In the Village of Yesteryear there were lots of local artisans with beautiful goods, including my friend Mary Anne Pagano and soap from her goats. There was also this very cool guy Dave (I think... I wish I could find his card and share his business name) who had all sorts of beautiful wooden toys. I was tempted to buy lots of different puzzles and trucks as gifts as they were painted so nicely and all non-toxic, but he had a big basket of unfinished wood cars and trucks for $4 a piece.

We bought two with the idea of saving them for gifts but... that didn't work so well. I wish we had bought more!

First Blocks

In our quest for simple, planet friendly, open-ended toys we've been looking for a first set of wooden blocks for baby Q. At some point I'd love to invest in a really nice set of unit blocks for Q that he can use through his adolescence and pass onto his children but for now we wanted something simple, less expensive but still of good quality. Who knew there was so much info out there on blocks? We ended up with the Uncle Goose Classic Alphabet blocks.



I whipped up a simple denim drawstring bag for them to live in.



We're already big fans. This morning we've played two games with the blocks: give him one block, wait a few minutes, give him another, give him a few minutes to play and then when he has one block in each hand and is feeling quite proud of himself I put another block out for him. It blows his little mind. I mean HOW can he hold three blocks?! The other game we've played he wasn't as into - I was trying to show him how when the blocks are stacked up he can knock them down. I would get 2 stacked up and he would reach for one to chew on..... he knocked it down but didn't notice or care.

Besides the blocks having some 'new toy smell' we're loving them.