LearnSweden Blog

Snow Stars

During this season we are constantly cooking or crafting or enjoying the wintry weather. Truth be told, it is frigid here and we are staying pretty much inside. So why not bring some snow in with us? The warm version that is. These snow stars are very impressive but so easy to make. I hope you have a fun time making them.

 

Supplies :

 

• copy paper
• scissors
• glue stick

1. Fold the sheet corner to corner to make a square.
2. Cut off the excess flap. Now you have a triangle.
3. Fold the triangle in half again to make a smaller triangle.
4. We are going to make four cuts. Feel free to us a pencil to make little marks so you know where you want to cut. First, make a cut following the length of the triangle. Stop a little bit before you get to the edge.
5. Move up a little on the triangle. Cutting in the same direction, stop before the edge and a little before the previous cut.
6. Continue in this way for two more cuts.
7. Unfold your triangle. Once open you will have a square.
8. Fold the two center cuts and glue. Hold with your fingers for just a few seconds to make sure its secure.
   
   
9. Turn the square over and fold the second cuts, gluing them together. Again, use your finger to hold in place until they dry a bit.
10. Turn the square over and fold the third cuts, gluing them together. Hold with your fingers.
11. Turn the square over and fold the fourth cut, gluing and holding them together.
12. Turn the square over and fold the fifth cut, gluing and holding them together.

Ta dah! You've finished the first point of your star. Now you have the honor of doing this five more times. It goes very quickly.

 

Once you have  six star points, its time to put them together.

1. Glue together the side part of each point and build your star. Again hold the sides together with your finger until they are stuck together.
2. Continue all the way around. On the last section, after I've glued the last side, I hold it with a paper clip.
3. Now it's time to do something else for an hour while your star dries. When we come back, we're going to glue the inner tips together and thread a ribbon to hang our lovely snow star.

Point Gluing

1. Glue the three sides of the points together and then the tips/ends.
2. Do this with the other three sides and tips.
3. Now glue these two sections together.
    
4. Thread a string to the top and hang with glory. 

Wanderings on a Rainy Afternoon

It really had a been a very rainy day.

 
 

We had tried to do the laundry and then we did it again via the storm.

 

We didn't really want to spend a day in the house. So there was only one option and that was to get in the car and head South. We knew we were heading towards När but we wanted to stop somewhere before we got to my aunt's house but where? 
Not really sure where we were headed we just kept winding down a variety of roads until we found ourselves at Jan Sandblom's keramik in Burs Flora, Gotland.

 

 
As the rumbling of thunder was heard over head, we entered a designer's studio just filled with works in progress. Upstairs was the most wonderful shop and gallery.

 

 

 
As boy waited for his mother, he had a little fun with candle play. Why is it that children love to try and blow out the candles or try not to blow out the candles in this case?

 
 Each piece is either hand turned or crafted in a mold. On our way out we saw a huge stack of items ready for the wood-fired kiln.

 
This is such a fabulous place which is open everyday in the summer. The drive is beautiful and there are some nice little places to stop and fika as well. You can find the Jan Sandblom keramik in the direction of Burs on route 144. It sits between Hemsa and Stånga.

 Today's Swedish words:

Rainy: regnig    phrase: en regnig sommar- a rainy summer

Laundry: tvätt   Laundromat: tvättstuga

Storm: oväder, storm

House: bostad, hem, hus

winding: buktig

road,route: väg

potter : keramiker

place one makes pottery: krukmakare or keramik

mold: forma

fika: to take a break and have coffee and some sweets.

A New Import to Sweden

It's not a car,....or a cell phone but the famous vegetable of October, the pumpkin, known as pumpa in Swedish.

All over Sweden you can find stands with pumpkins and other members of the squash family, ready to be carved just like in the US.

 

We made a visit to the pumpkin patch ourselves. My children usually want to get many many pumkins, with the idea of making jack-o-lanterns which we can line up and down the stairs and driveway. Due to the very labor intensive activity of carving a pumpkin we just get one pumpkin for each kid. I must confess though, that I get a few extra pie pumpkins to can pumpkin pie filling for the November season.

So here's how you carve a pumpkin.

 

With a very sharp knife, cut off the top of the pumpkin. Put it aside for later because this will be your lid.

Here's the close up on that.

 

Next scoop out all of the gunk in the middle of the pumpkin. Put everything is a bowl because there are great pumpkin seeds mixed in with this gunk which are great for roasting. (More on that another day.)

 
Of course pumpkin carving always works a lot better when the family cat is checking up on things and helping out.

 

After the gunk is out of the pumpkin, draw a face or whatever image you want on the front of your pumpkin. With the same sharp knife cut it out. Here's a look at our afternoon's work.

 

Don't forget the giveaway over at A Place Like This. It ends today at 6 pm EST. Enjoy. Back on Thursday.

Today's Words:

Pumpa: Pumpkin

Pumpor: Pumpkins

Skär: To carve with a knife.

Vi skära pumporna: We carve the pumpkins.

Visby Glassworks

 

Sweden has a long standing tradition of glassblowing. Personally, I love glass and I don't think there is such a thing as too much glass. Lucky for us not only did we find glass but the furnace was hot and working. We just had to stay and watch. It was totally mesmerizing. The furnace is 1200 degrees C.

The pole sits in the oven getting hot and ready to put a blob of sand on it. Excuse me because this isn't a technical term. It is my own homegrown interpretation of things.

The pole is constantly in motion as the glass maker turns and bends the molten sand.

What was this fine artist making? Why this of course. Isn't it beautiful?

Also from the oven

Are these beautiful works of art. I ended up buying a little carafe for salad dressing.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The New Edition of the Rhythm of the Home

Today is the day,... the new edition of  Rhythm of the Home is out today. This issue is completely incredible. It is chalked full of creative moments to have and share with your families. About a week before the new edition comes out I start getting just plain giddy. It is a completely magical moment of discovering what other blogging friends have contributed and what their view of a created life looks like. Once again, I've had the great occasion to contribute to this edition as well. Writing for Rhythm of the Home is just as powerful  as discovering the treasures in the new issue. The process always starts out the same and then inspiration takes over and the chosen idea takes on a life of it's own. The kids and I make a big list of all the potential things we would like to share with our reading friends. Slowly, we cut the list down to just three choices and from this, the project becomes an article in Rhythm of the Home.

Once we know what we are writing about, many happy moments are collected and shared as we prepare for the photo shoot. In just a short time, writing for ROTH has become a family celebration of capturing the moments that completey inspire our lives and imaginations here in the hills of The Smoky Mountains.

 

In this edition we share one of the most amazing evenings we've ever had, and that's the one we shared with a bunch of fairies weaving an invisible cloak. At the end of it all they left us with a gift for us to share with all of you. Please come and join us as we have some fairy fun of our very own.

 

 Bernadette,Heather, and Julia have brought these projects, recipes, and thoughtful moments to life via their creative eyes and heartfelt intentions. To them, I give much thanks.

Please join us in reading and celebrating the third edition of Rhythm of the Home. May your summer days be filled with much joy, crafting, and creative living.  Oh I almost forgot.....Rhythm of the Home Blog is having a huge giveaway. Good luck.

Crafted Memories

This past weekend we had the most incredible graduation party for our sweet daughter Mimi. Next Saturday, she'll be graduating from High School and heading off to University in the Fall.

As with all family parties, the very special table linens are brought out. This one here was crocheted by my great-grandmother when my mother was pregnant with me. Each time one of the family was expecting a baby, Gram would crochet a large table cloth. Why a table-cloth? Her answer was always the same, "They'll have to get married one day." And so it was that each one of us came upon a large beautifully crocheted table cloth. It was pressed, folded and wrapped in special paper until our wedding day. Then it belonged to it's rightful owner to be used in their new family celebrations.

As I pulled out this tablecloth to see if it needed washing, pressing, etc , I started thinking how great-gram planned for my happiness even before I was born. She wanted me to have beautiful things in my home to share in my little familie's milestone celebrations. Though she would never know my husband or my children, she hoped for my future and my happiness.

Another hopeful wish maker was my great aunt Teresa. She was a very talented silversmith. I have many of her gorgeous creations. There is one simple reason. Teresa had a philosophy. Many people think that silver is time consuming and too much work. All of the polishing,storing, and protecting takes time. So Teresa's philosophy is simple, the one who happily likes to polish the silver should own the silver.

When I was 10 years old, my mother had Teresa's coffee spoons hanging from a spoon rack on the wall. I use to love to take the spoons off the rack, stack them in one hand, stand them up on the stem end and let them fall. It so happened that Great Aunt Teresa, who was ancient, was visiting us and saw my tradition with her spoons.

"Do you like my spoons Valli?" she asked.

Of course I loved her spoons. That's why I played with them. After sharing those thoughts with her she said, "The one who really loves my spoons polishes them every Saturday." Then she winked, pulled out the silver polish and showed me how to take care of "her" spoons. From that time on I would polish her spoons every saturday. Every now and then mom would pull out her silver to have me polish and store it and then Farmor would bring her silver over to have me polish and store it and pretty soon I was the polishing girl.

When I moved off to Austria my mother wrapped up Teresa's spoons with a note attached, "Polish on Saturdays." Until this very day, I polish these spoons. Not always every saturday but I polish them all the same.

All of these stories about items different family members have created left me thinking about all of the creations I've made. Will some lovely grandchild share the tradition of these crafted memories? Will they too become a crafted memory to hold onto? To let a future loved one know that I was thinking of them and wishing them  happiness?

Sharing some of these stories as we prepared for Mimi's graduation party, left me feeling like these loved ones are still part of our memories through their hand crafted talents and good wishes. Here's to the crafted home! What cherished items to you continue to use,share, and pass on?

  

   

A Button Swap

 

I had the pleasure a couple of weeks ago to not only make some original buttons of my own to share with my swap partner Märtha Stina but I was also the recipient of some lovely buttons,ribbon and thread.

I had so much fun doing this and a huge thank you to bot Märthafor the lovely items and creativity, and to Elin of Mönsterarkivet for hostessing this great event. Please be sure to check out their blogs. They're so inspiring.

Camilla Engman The Suitcase Series

The first time I encountered Camilla Engman was when I was writing an article about the Göteborg International Film Festival. Camilla had done the artwork for the poster and I was immediately enchanted and enamored with her work.

I soon found out that I was late to the party and that everyone I knew practically had heard of her. Shortly, thereafter, I had the pleasure of adding her artwork to my google page and running across her blog.  Now a daily read,Camilla has impacted the discovery of my own artistic side through her use of paper,photography,ceramics,walking,traveling, and the life she shares with her little dog moran.

So when I was asked the question,"What do you what for Jul?" The first thing out of my mouth and emails were "The new Camilla Engman" book.

 So it came yesterday and I spent the afternoon with Camilla, delighting in her art process.  What impressed me the most was the philosophy of sharing a creative life. It doesn't stand apart from us but she has included us in it. She has experimented with everything from stuffed animals, to paper cutting, collage making,ceramics, drawing, painting and combining many of these mediums to create her art. Her great love though is drawing.I've seen how her art has unfolded and evolved through the last years on her blog. She shares in her book how her creative living came to be and the one thing that I greatly appreciate is her desire to inspire us. This she has done with success.

 

In this lovely little book she has included a post-card, a luggage tag, and this fun little glassine envelope filled with postcards which we can make our very own collages with. One of my favorite additions is the small book about her dog Moran , who leads a very imaginative life of his own.

To find out more about this book please go here. Here's where you can find Camilla and also at Studio Violet.

Kosta-Boda

To stand next to the glass furnaces, watching the glass pieces take shape is mesmerizing.

Heat the sand,cool in water, shape, reheat.  It is an artistic dance which has been going on since the first furnace was installed back in 1742.

From one generation to the next, the secrets of their skills and artistry have been passed on.

Handmande colorful glass has made the Kosta-Boda glassworks one of Sweden's leading producers of glass.

Bluebee's Knitting Round

Knit one:purl two:eat three blueberries.

        

Yes,we're already getting ready for the winter. Actually, I've been knitting down my stash by knitting for charity. Eariler in the summer I became aware of an orphanage in India which needs knitted baby hats,blankets,and burp rags for their new arrivals. It felt really good to help these little ones.

                            

While in Oregon I paid a visit to Foothills Alpaca farm where I took the wool right off their backs. These are going to be knitted into wonderful earflap hats. Don't worry....there isn't too much yarnery going on,I'm getting in a swim or two as well.