Craft Stars

My good friend Andrea sent me a link to make Finnish Paper Stars, which is a cool variation on a very simple craft I like to do, folding German Paper or Ribbon stars. With a little variation, you can make them swazis. I'll show you how to do that later. Good Yule everyone!

Tomten Treats

In heathen time reckoning the new day starts at dusk. So Wednesday night is the start of Thursday, which is the Tomten's treat day. This week he gets a banana nut muffin, and eggnog with lots of nutmeg. Fresh nutmeg is really great. 

Seasonal Crafts - rolled candles

This is one that I've seen around for a while and never thought to try. I have to say I was really surprised at how much fun it was, despite being very simple. The candle making kit is nothing more than sheets of colored beeswax and a long string of wick. 

We got the kit from A Toy Garden, but I know a few different "Waldorf-y" kinds of shops have them. The instructions suggest warming the sheets with a blow dryer, but I recommend using a handy sun-beam. It's much nicer, safer, more seasonal, and gives you the perfect excuse to sing some sun sings, as if you need an excuse!  ;-)  In case you needs some sun songs, there are a couple of books at the shop linked above, and some here - at Nova Natural, another favorite store for natural kids stuff. Our alltime favorite Sun Song though, is Sun-Hail by heathen bard Hilda. Here is her page, which I highly recommend to all heathen parents.

I'm glad I kept the wooden boxes from all the Melissa & Doug wooden toys we've gotten; even when we don't really needs the box to store the toy that came in it, they come in handy for projects like this one. Having the box to support the wax sheet while we carried, heated, and rolled it made things much easier for baby. The edges of the sheets are a little fragile and crumbly. First baby choose a sheet of wax, or 2 sheets if we wanted to make 2 colored candles. then she put the wax on the overturned box, and placed it in the sunbeam. While it warmed we measured and cut the wick. Then we stared by pressing the wick lightly into the wax, and folding the bottom edge up over it. I'd get the rolling started so it would proceed evenly, and we'd roll together, then seal the ends with a little crimping action, and press the seam down to seal it nicely. 

After we got a good routine down with making the candles we got fancy by adding decorating wax, also from the above vendors. Baby choose colors and cut out sh

apes with little wax cutters made just for this. I'd help pinch the stars into a more star-like shape as the cutter left them looking too much like little flowers. Then we'd stick them to the candles - just the warmth of our hands and very slight pressure was all it took. Easy! 

They came out looking pretty. We planned to give them as gifts, but we might keep at least a few of them, since we use so many candles - we always like to have one burning when we have a meal

Seasonal Crafting - LINZER COOKIES!

I don't think there is a better time for crafts than the later, colder half of fall. The weather tends to drive us indoors, and it's natural to want to do work to prepare for the winter months to come. For older kid's I recommend sausage making and brewing, but here are some good crafts for littler kids, we did these over the Thanksgiving weekend. 

LINZER COOKIES - these are old-fashioned sandwich style cookies. They are really festive and you can get the cutters with different holiday cut-out shapes - trees, ornaments, candy canes, stars,  etc. I like to make a few batches, and vary the filling: blackberry, raspberry, cherry, apricot, cloudberry, whatever kind of jam you like or have on hand. We made a special trip to a favorite German deli and let baby choose some jams. A great use for home-made preserves too! 

1  1/4 C flour (AP = All Purpose)

2 tsp. cinnamon 

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 C (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature

1 C powdered sugar (+ some for decorating

5 tsp. orange peel, grated

2 tsp. lemon peel, grated (substitute or add lime too if you like) 

3 large egg yolks

1 1/4 C Hazelnut meal

Blackberry Jam 

First put out the butter to warm, and make the hazelnut meal. 

Put shelled hazelnuts in a single layer on a baking sheet and toast them at about 325 F for 5 minutes, watch them! When they start to smell toasty remove a few and rub them gently in a kitchen towel, you want the papery outer husks to come off. If they do not, heat again, 5 minutes or so at a time until the rub off easily. Remove the nuts and discard the husks. They will have a much nicer texture & flavor this way. Chop them finely, with a food processor or nut chopper if you have one, or a large knife if you don't. (This is labor intensive, but possible; I do it this way.) Do not over-grind; you don't want a creamy consistency, but more like corn-meal. Over-chopping or a blunt blade will bring out the oil. 

Sift and whisk the 1st 5 ingredients together. 

Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy, add the citrus zest. 

Beat in Yolks and dry ingredients, and nut meal. 

When the dough is smooth, make a flattened patty out of it, wrap tightly, and chill for a minimum of 1 hour, overnight is fine. 

Pre-heat oven to 325 F, roll out dough 1/8" thick, cut cookies. Half of them will be plain discs, the other half discs with a shaped hole in the center. Bake for up to 22 minutes, watch them, they burn easily. They should be light golden brown. Check after 10 or 15 minutes and turn the sheet if the cookies look to be browning unevenly. 

Cool cookies on a wire rack. Spread bottoms with jam, top with cut-out tops, sprinkle with powdered sugar. They are lovely, and make a nice gift in a cookie tin. Many thrift stores have loads of nice cookie tins for under a dollar. Put paper between the layers of cookies.