elves and gnomes and bears, oh my!

Well, we've been rather housebound up here in the great white north, the roads have been sketchy and Ari fights his snowsuit with a mighty screech. Our walks have been limited to our (rather long) driveway, because all our favorite trails are to thick with snow. Perry and I have our early christmas present to ourselves in the mail -2 pairs of discounted snowshoes! Yeah!- but until they arrive I have been looking for ways to fight off the cabin fever that threatens to attack. So lucky for me some new friends have popped by, keeping me occupied. Though they are a bit of an odd trio, they have some good stories.

The purple panda I made from this great tutorial on mollychicken's wonderfult blog. I will never reach such crafting brilliance, but it's good to get inspiration from the greats. The gnome is an Enki craft (yes! I will write about Enki one day soon!) and is also in Freya Jaffke's Toymaking with Children, that I took out from the library, but which I suspect has improved since its first printing, which is what I was sent through interlibrary loans. The book is ancient and smells like lavender essential oil. And the instructions are rather vague. I find the gnomey guy a little bit shady looking, being face-less and all, but he is actually quite friendly. The elf is all mine, made from bits of paper I have around. He is just an all round nice fellow.