My Mom gave me the cutest little village that she’s had forever, and I always thought was meant to decorate a mantle or something. I was so excited when I inspected them recently & discovered that they all have holes in the back big enough to poke a tree light through.

If you look closely at this pic you’ll see that all of the houses have “stained glass” windows (I’m thinking plastic or cellophane), that glow beautifully when lit from behind.

I’m thinking I’ll put a bit of effort into mending these and will put the kids to work with cardboard, colored cellophane, glue, and paints to make our own little set for next year.

My friend Candace has a great post up on Naturally Educational about National Bird-feeding Month which is under way right now where she shares a great bunch of activities to do with your kiddos.

In our house, we feed the birds year-round and have a special bird-watching corner in our kitchen that I do my best to keep clear of junk (a never ending effort). It’s one of my favorite spots in our home, especially early in the morning when the rest of the family is still asleep and I have a few minutes with my coffee or tea.

Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I catch the birds watching me

I love how independent Maggie now. The other day she was bored and instead of asking me what to do for the zillionth time, she found herself a Klutz book called Simple Embroidery, browsed a bit, and then helped herself to everything she needed to get going. The only bit I provided was a crisp white hotel napkin to work on.

This awesome bird has been joined by a ladybug and several happy flowers.

Maggie exploring on her own = a happy mommy.

I just got my most awesome new camera strap from Erin over at House on Hill Road, and was inspired to head out to my snow laden garden to snap a few shots of melting snowmen. How happy do you think I was to discover these lovely bulbs popping up? Very! I’m assuming it’ll be crocuses (croci?), but the fun will be in heading out to see how they progress every morning.

I’ve been thumbing through my gardening books and catalogs, making my little plans for our vegetable & flower gardens this spring and summer. I can not wait to start planting! How about you?

So exciting! Today, we have a visit from Pip of Meet Me At Mike’s. Pip is on a blog tour and I was lucky enough to be picked for her first stop. For those of you who are new here, I hope you’ll stay a while & poke around a bit. I’ve plenty of fun activities for kids & grown-ups alike.

{for those of you paying attention to dates: I’m posting this on the 7th because Pip is in Australia, and her 8th starts earlier than mine!}

Here’s Pip:

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I thought a back to nature crafty tutorial would be just the thing for my visit over here at Little Elephants!  Go look under rocks with the kid in your life!

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I am totally devouring the tales of writer Gerald Durrell’s childhood, so descriptively spun in books like ‘My Family and Other Animals‘. The young Gerald was forever catching bugs and other creepy crawlies, which he would then research thoroughly and (usually) return to their natural habitat. In honour of Mr Durrell, I thought you might like to craft up some bug-keeping matchboxes.  They are the perfect accessory for the junior naturalist in your life.  They are quick to make and you can also use them to keep little non-crawly treasures in!, if bugs are not your cup of tea.  I borrowed my bug designs from the Charley Harper Coloring Book.  These would make great party favours, too!

Embroidered Bug Keepers a la Gerald Durrell

• Matchboxes
• Calico or Muslin to embroider onto
• Embroidery Hoop
• Transfer Pencil
• Bug Image resized to fit onto face of matchbox
• Embroidery Floss
• Needle
• Scissors
• Stapler
• Iron and Ironing Board

First trace over your design using the Transfer Pencil

Next flip your tracing over and pin it face down onto your fabric.  Make sure it is centred nicely.

Iron with firm presses to transfer design onto fabric.  Don’t move the iron backwards and forwards or your design might move too!

Take a peek – without shifting your paper – to see if it’s transferred.  If not keep pressing.  Once it HAS transferred to the fabric, remove pins and paper and draw in any bits that didn’t transfer properly with a grey lead pencil or embroidery marker if you have one.

Pop the design over an embroidery hoop and stitch over your lines with small stitches.  I used two strands of the embroidery floss to keep the details nice and fine.

Once done, trim all your loose threads neatly so they don’t show through your fabric later.

Next make the strip to go around your matchbox.  Trim your fabric so that it’s 5″ long and 4″ high.  Your embroidered design should be centred in the middle of this piece.

Go slowly so you don’t make any blunders.  Head to your ironing board.  Now, with right (embroidered)  side down, fold each raw LONG fabric edge in to the centre so that the raw edges meet nicely and create neat folded edges at the top and bottom of your strip. Press.

Now fold just one of the short edges of your strip in 1/2″ and press.

Then wrap this whole folded and pressed ensemble around your matchbox outer.

Tuck the raw short edge under the folded short edge.

All your edges will be neat and folded now, with the embroidery centred nicely on the front of the matchbox.  Yay!

Staple into place at the back, being sure it’s pulled nice and snug around your matchbox as you staple.

Go look for some critters to study : just be sure to return them to where you found them after you’ve done our investigating!