A day for crafting

Savannah woke up today with the idea of making a bracelet for her cousin Abby, probably because she rediscovered the bracelet Abby made for her in New York. Savannah wanted to cut out a butterfly and put it on a pipecleaner for a bracelet. We make bracelets like this sometimes at home and sometimes at the Butterfly Pavilion's storytime, BUT I tried to convince her that we should try some other materials since the paper might rip in the mail and the metal in the pipe cleaners sometimes poke. So, one trip to the craft store later we'd returned with all sorts of beads she'd picked out to make bracelets for everyone! She had lots of fun stringing them on in different patterns. I'm not usually interested in jewelry-making, or in jewelry that much, but I even made one for myself and for $1 in beads, it turned out pretty well.

Savannah's bracelets, one in yellow with sparkly beads and another in purples.

Her bracelets to her cousins, all wrapped up in origami paper.

While Savannah was busy stringing together her bracelets, I decided to make a zafu pillow for myself. It's a meditation pillow so while you're sitting and breathing, your butt doesn't get too sore (and of course, it aligns the spine and helps open the chest for better breathing). I found a great tutorial for it online but I decided to add one extra feature, a handle. I've been waiting to find a project for my Amy Butler lotus fabric (yellow lotus pond) and this seemed the perfect use for it. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out but I wish I had stuffed it slightly less. I'm used to the zafus that you sort of squish into and mine's a little more firm. Maybe I'll have to break it in, which is really the point afterall. I didn't have barley or buckwheat hulls to fill it with and rather than taking the time to order the proper filling, I made do with a combination of shredded bamboo that I had leftover from another project and the polybeads that are used to fill bean bags. Those polybeads were a nightmare to clean up and as Savannah said, "Well, Mom, I guess you learned your lesson about that!"

My first zafu pillow.

The handle I added for function.

Isn't it a beauty?