Another cookie lover in the house

Starboy says our Elf is a boy.

What about the skirt? I asked.

Oh, he said. It's a boy wearing a skirt.

There are some hilarious Elf-on-the-Shelf photos online. Check out the Pinterest board I made to collect them. I got the cookie idea from A Little Lair. I'm not sure how many escapades this elf will get into, since I find the idea a bit creepy, with all the marketing. Techman is freaking out that the thing moves around the room.

We just use the elf as a fun decoration, not as a Santa Spy. We generally don't use punishments and rewards in our parenting strategies, with the exception of a dinner here and there for our cheese and bread addict. So this elfie is just for fun.

Autumn gnomes and sensory kit

I can never get enough of the Wee Folk Art gnomey peg people! (Check out the comments on that link, there are some other how-tos that are really fun.) Starboy's favorite has a flower button and glitter dots all over.

Another couple of gnomes landed as a bonus in a couple of Autumn sensory bin kits I offered to some mommies, here's hoping the kids will be thrilled with a new playmate!

This particular one was a bit overwhelming for Starboy last year—I'd recommend about half of the junk  wonderful sensory input in it so there is room to play. The mecca of sensory bin ingenuity is at Counting Coconuts, an amazing Montessori homeschool blog.

Fairy Party—gnome hats

Thinking that some of the kids might want to be a gnome instead of a fairy, I thought I should whip up some gnome hats before the party, so everyone could feel included. I think I got two yards of red eco felt at 40-50% off, so the cost for about a dozen hats was something like eight bucks.

These hats were a little different from the Red Gnome hats I made this time last year. Those were secure, and very German, but since they covered the ears it was sort of a weird experience wearing them. Not great for a party.

I used the dimensions on Tradewind Tiaras for a traditional cone hat, and they worked great. I added about an inch to them for the kids with bigger heads (I made only two of these, and that was plenty. They would have fit some adults as well.) I sewed the seam on the machine then turned them inside out. Didn't take long at all.

I also used her trick of a flower hair clip as a decoration on the hat—thank you, 99-cent Only store.

Of course, the option of a hat meant that some kids wanted to be both a gnome and a fairy. I expected that.

What I didn't expect was that some kids wanted to decorate the hats! It just goes to show: where there is a glue gun and pieces of faux nature, there will be endless creativity.

Hey. She's a kid at heart.

It occurred to me that I didn't really have to go to the trouble of the flower fairies and the gardens at all. I should have just offered the hat project! Sometimes "keeping it simple" is a "hindsight is 20/20" situation for me.

Fairy party!

Starboy's fairy party was a blast! Here is a preview. I'll post more details in the coming week!

 Bon Appetit chocolate mayonnaise birthday cake.

 Gnomes, elves, munchkins, cake and more.

Look at the bunting, not the pathetic roses.

 Fairy gardens!

 Snacks!

 Celebration!

And more fairy gardens!

Gettin' gnomey

Starboy has been feeling the need for lots of one-on-one interaction and play lately. Yesterday he hit me up to make some more fairies. I wasn't in the mood. So we made some gnomey peg people.

First, we painted the peg bodies with watered-down liquid watercolors. You can get pegs at the craft store or at wood products shops online. These pegs have a 7/8" diameter and are about 2 1/2" tall. You can get much larger ones as well. I think these about run 50c-$1.00 each.

The painted body and eyes idea came from the gorgeous fairy garden party blog entry by Cathy Gaubert. There are a zillion lovely ways to make peg people, as you can see in my Pinterest collection. But this was sort of last minute, so I went the easy route, with the paint.

We covered the head and face of the peg person with tape so he wouldn't get painted. Somehow, when my back was turned, a brush flopped around and one of the peg heads got painted anyway. Of course. Luckily it was in sort of a balding man hair pattern, so it worked out okay.

Starboy painted very carefully, and chose the color.

We used the clothing pattern from Wee Folk Art. Her peg people are gorgeous, with hand stitching and fine detail. Starboy didn't have the patience for that, so I used a hot glue gun rather than a needle and thread. Rolling the hat was tricky: I used a straight pin to keep from hot-gluing myself to the hat.

Starboy insisted that these gnomes needed glitter. So we used glitter glue to decorate the tips of the hats and the capes, then set the gnomes to dry until morning.

They turned out so cute! I love the detail in the more intricate designs, but for a good bang-for-the-buck project, I think this one is a home run.