Wash Wednesday

Today
I had a little help

with my wash wednesday post!



The ordinary everyday brims quiet with sacred moments...

From the rousing sounds of children within the walls of the house I step, unnoticed into birdsong and the rustle of leaves overhead.

Small hands, grasp and clutch and bury and reach. And I inhale deep the moment, learning the blessing of slow lived, *real time* life.

The space it opens for me to simply be and enjoy the moment with her.

The embracing of the dawning day with a basket load under arm, and a silent, waiting line.

The decoration of socks and skirts abundant in late afternoon breeze.

Making Cornflour Gloop

Just one cup of warm water...


And two cups of cornflour later...

Makes hours of messy gloopy, tactile fun....

But here's the science bit...

Apparently this mixture is a non Newtonian substance.
The surface wrinkles and forms ripples when blown on, you can drag a paint brush through it and even slide it right out of the bowl.

However the substance is responsive to pressure and when touched or hit with an object it immediately hardens to a solid.

It has the weirdest texture and is really fun to play with.



Here's a step by step guide on you tube with lots of great ideas for playing with your own gloop.

Live Slowly and Simply... Have Eyes of Wonder

"Live slowly and simply, so that you have the time and space to love deeply and well. 

Hold your children close, as often as possible. 

Look deeply into their eyes, speak words of life, love and acceptance, into, and over them."

Jewels (Eyes of Wonder)

Fruit

Gentle painting with my girls....
Is something beautiful for my soul.

Washing Line Poetry

The Sky is just waking.

Icy sunlight eclipses powder blue.

Dew glints from green.

An emerald garden, a mine of jewels.

A sparkling world.

And a row of clothes outline the shapes of those I love.

Those dear to my heart.

Stains washed away with the love of my own two hands given away to the wind.

To be gently dried anew by creation.

The soft whispering breeze.

The smile of the sun.

How to make recycled paper... and some other happy scraps

We have been having a lot of fun making our own recycled paper recently as part of our going green "one small change" project... So much so I thought I'd share a little of the fun here!

What Ingredients will you need?

• We used some medium weight multi purpose paper for this project.(You can use almost any kind of paper)
• Some dried rose petals and lavender (optional but they do look pretty)
• A few drops of essential oil (optional, but it does smell nice)
• Liquid starch

What Equipment will you need?:

• A large tray both deep and wide enough to immerse your frame and paper mulch in.
• A sponge
• An embroidery hoop
• Some netting (like the kind you find on fairy dresses)
• Some large squares of felt.

How to make the paper:

We began by tearing the paper into small pieces. Then we loaded it into a blender with some warm water (enough water to just cover the paper)

The thinner or more watery the solution the thinner the paper sheets will turn out to be.

Then we emptied the solution into a large tray before sprinkling in the essential oil and dried flower petals.



Once the solution had been well stirred we immersed an embroidery hoop that we had clamped over some netting into the solution.

Here is a picture of the embroidery hoop and netting we used...


Make sure that the netting is covered evenly with the paper mulch before lifting the hoop out of the solution.

Once all the excess water had dripped away we covered the entire hoop with a large piece of felt and gently tipped the contents over (like turning a cake onto a cooling rack) dabbing away at the underside of the netting with a dry sponge to release the paper mulch from the netting.

Here is the paper mulch resting on the felt to dry.


We sprayed the top of the paper mulch with a little liquid starch and left it to dry (drying takes about 10 hours)
The finished result looks like beautiful rustic art paper.
I'm hoping to get a rectangular frame soon so that we can make some writing sheets!

Watch this helpful video about making recycled paper. A great step by step guide!

Sunshine After Rain

My Mother brings me Sweet Williams wrapped in brown paper.

The sunlight offers a gift of green silence. A gentle, womb of space.
I take her offerings, both the wrapped and the unwrapped.

And show the brown eyed girl how to cut stems, peal leaves and arrange blooms in ice clear glass.

Once submerged wilting petals revive almost instantly.

So do I.

Words, unguarded somehow escape like the sudden dash of light within a writhing cloud.

 Unnamed spaces grace long ago, sun draped days.

 Held tight for years. Like a bud.

In the sunlight, her hair is almost pure white. She is getting old now. I notice more and more, the slowing movement. The squinting eyes in search of beloved child smiles.

And in this space of both sunlight and rain I let go. And I embrace. And both feel equally good and right.

Florence playing with sunlight and petals