Martinmas Lantern Walk

This was our very first year celebrating Martinmas and had a lot of fun creating special lanterns for our lantern walk :)

We started by heading outdoors during a break in the rain showers we've been having and collected red japanese maple leaves, deep purple leaves from a smoke tree, yellow leaves from some of the phlox in the yard and then started to paper mache our balloons with a drippy mix of flour and water for the glue and strips of crepe paper :)

The first layer was just paper mache and then we placed our leaves on top in patterns and just randomly and then covered them with one more layer of paper mache to help them stay in place without worrying that they would start to lift or fall off. I don't have any photos of us actually doing the paper mache because I was right in there with the kids slopping paste and paper on my own balloon *grin*.

We left them to dry overnight by the fire and in the morning the balloons had started shrinking and were pulling away from the sides of the paper...

leaving us with great big giant bowls that I punched 4 holes into around the top and then tied strings onto them for hanging :)

The children wore their cloaks pretending to be like St. Martin in his cape when he came upon the freezing man outside the city gates and then we headed out into the darkness. I retold them them story of Martin and the poor man that I used from Melisa's blog and we sang the following song from out of my Autumn Wynstone Press booklet :)

The sunlight fast is dwindling,
My little lamp needs kindling.
Its beam shines far in darkest night,
Dear Lantern, guard me with your light.

We had so much fun walking with our lanterns glowing in the dark. Although I think next time we might do it a little earlier as when it gets dark around here it is pitch black and there isn't a street light in sight for a great many miles. I had to keep myself from thinking of bears and other wild animals that love to lurk in the dark around here LOL.

I just love how they glow so brightly showing the silhouettes of their leaves through the paper mache. We've brought them into our family room and hung them by the window so that we can enjoy them in the evenings with the flicker of candle light dancing from within them :)

I hope you had a lovely Martinmas day to and I would love to see photos of your lanterns if you shared some on your blogs!

Hugs,
Rosina

Snow Sculptures & Candle Light

The other day when I was reading Marcia's blog Child in Harmony she had shared a wonderful snow sculpture of a bird that she had made and invited others to join in :) When I mentioned it to the children they were completely gung ho to create something that we could share with her family so we got busy!

I decided to create a snow angel with a crown of Japonica blooms upon her head and her arms folded nicely together in front of her...

to create a little nook for seed to go for the winter birds. I loved how Marcia's had a little hideaway for seed so I just had to do it to *grin*.

Sticking with the bird theme my 7 year old created this fantastic bird sculpture. She was so happy with how it turned out :)

Next she went on to create a little birdie hotel complete with a bird seed cafe on the top surrounded with a little bit of camouflage bush and a cozy little nook in the bottom with a comfy leaf nest :)

This evening we took a candle outside for our snow angel to hold and lit it. She was so pretty glowing in the dark outside of our family room window. So wonderfully peaceful to sit and watch it flicker and dance as it illuminated her face.

Hopefully the snow will stay just a little bit longer so that we can enjoy a few more nights of our glowing angel before she melts away :)

Hugs,
Rosina