Natures way

Help the honey bees

Here is a great link for those of you teaching Honey and Bees to your children

http://www.helpthehoneybees.com/

Blessings
Carle

Green Companies

Whilst looking for a courier company to send the books for the Zimbabwe Homeschool Appeal, I discovered a courier company that impresses me, [big industry seldom impresses me] I never asked for a discount, but when I told them that we were sending donated books, they offered to help where possible.

Cape Couriers, get my green stamp of approval for several reasons.


1] They are only charging me R75 to courier 50kg of Home School books from Cape Town to Johannesburg. [Zimbabwe members to collect there]



2] They have an environmental policy - and are really big on recycling and using recycled products.


3] They make these amazing tables and chairs for schools in disadvantaged communities, AND these are made from the companies broken wooden pallets.
.

Their environmental policy and contact details are available on www.capecouriers.co.za

For more info on the Zim Appeal, go to http://www.zimbabweappeal.info/

Making Lipbalm

Here is the blog link for the homemade lip balm

or

http://ourholisticlife.blogspot.com/2008/05/our-lipbalm-recipe.html

Hope this inspires you all, it is really easy!

Let us know if you make any and if you have any pictures for posting

Acorn Men and Tables

Linda [South Africa] has been really busy making these great Little men!

Cute Linda.

[and nice veggies ~ are they from you garden?]

I have also been making tables for the gnomes, though Thomas and Oliver are using them as chairs! Little acorn hat make great bowls. Thomas has been collecting wild grass seeds for "gnome food".

The top of the table is a slither of sanded wood [5mm wide] and the stump is a piece of raw wood of 1,5 cm. I used a small tacking nail to secure it all together.

I hope our photos inspire you all to get knitting and wood working! Oh and please remember to send us your pictures.

Mail pictures to Dehningc@gmail.com

Gnome Acorn Craft

I was inspired to make these by a posting on Welcome to Munchkinland Blog that led to Saartjeknits . Saartje knitted Korknisse ~ which are cork men knitted in 2 units [hat and coat]

My Gnome Oakies [Acorn men] are knitted all in one and take a few minutes to make.






We collected our acorns last week in Stellenbosch. We collected all shapes and sizes so they were perfect for this craft. My acorns were dry so the nut inside rattles and makes a cute noise!

Here is the pattern
I used double knit bamboo [sigh] on 3mm needles. This created a sturdy knit!

1] Cast on 15 stitches
2] Knit 5 rows
3] Purl 1 row
4] Knit 3 stitches cast off 9 stitches knit last 3 stitches.
5]Knit 3 stitches turn knitting around and cast on 9 stitches then turn knitting around again and knit last 3 stitches. = 15 stitches
6] Knit 2 rows
7] *Knit 2 Together, knit 3 stitches. Repeat from * to end
8] Purl
9] *Knit 2 together, knit 2 stitches.Repeat from * to end
10] Purl
11] *Knit 2 together, knit 1 stitch. Repeat from * to end
12] Purl
13] Knit 2 together until the end

Thread yarn through the 3 remaining stitches and sew up the Oakie.


mmmm....now you need to find the perfect size acorn, I like the Gnome Oakie to stand, so for this you need to use a slightly smaller acorn.







Any way, If you need any help, Just let me know.

Sunset colours

The beautiful Eucalyptus Cladocaylix trees on our farm in the autumn sunset.