Learning with My Kiddos....

Most of you already know I have a love affair with wool. And the thing that is so wonderful about it, is that the possibilities of learning new techniques and ways to use reclaimed wool is endless! I have been hoping to learn how to needle felt for a few years now and was finally able to pick up the tools to do it. I sat down last Saturday morning with them to try them out and play for awhile with my wool scraps, and they were like a magnet for for kiddos. I think I was even more excited about that than the felting itself. I really enjoy when our kids take interest in learning something new. So I decided to take my younger girls out on an adventure to get thier own tools for needle felting so we could learn together. Cole and madison were recovering from a lock in at church the night before and catching up on some much needed sleep, so Joslyn and Bell were excited to take a little trip to the craft store. While the trip with the little ones was so much fun, we unfortunately were not able to succeed with our objective:(
Stop number 1-JoAnns. They had plenty of mats for needle felting, but of course, no needles-makes no sense to me-but at least we got part of our tools.
Next stop -Hobby Lobby. Well, they carry the tools we need, but they only had one of the needle tools in stock. Alright, we are now a bit closer to our objective. I still had happy and hopeful girls with me.
Stop number three-Michaels-arghh! They do not even carry needle felting tools-what is that?! Bell asked me when we got back in the car the thrid time, "why did I have to come?" Well, all of that changed fast enough when we got home. We took turns sitting around the table and trying this new technique. It was fun to watch all of them come up with their own ideas. Even Noah got into it. Here are a few pictures of the kids enjoying this.

Noah ended up loving to clean the felting mats which helped give the others kids a chance to work with the needles.
Joslyn decided to make a dog pillow for Noah. It was so fun watching her come up with a plan and make it happen.
Oh, and by the way-the tattoos are all real-just kidding! Those are compliments of money from Grandpa and Grandma for her birthday. We will ban the giving of money from Grandparents when she is old enough to get real ones:)!

Joslyn stitched the pillow together by hand and stuffed it with wool scraps. She was pretty excited to give it to Noah.
Bell enjoyed making alot of circles for flowers.
I do not think we will be eating on this table any time soon! Too much fun and I sure do love Saturdays when we are all home! We enjoyed watching the olympics together, Cole even felted the olympic symbol when he woke from his slumber.
Madi worked on a flower. Which eventually turned into the idea of bracelets and necklaces.
All connected with no thread at all. Amazing, I am just so taken with this!
I did end up purchasing the other needle felting tools online and they are actually much better quality than the craft store buys. It was a good Saturday!