pretty in green

i know it's been slow going on my wonderful heart and soul works blog but i do have plenty of projects going ... too many i fear.

however i am almost done with this one and thought i'd give you a look at our beautiful Solstice Tree ... in his new green coat.

for those new to me and my stories, the Solstice Tree is a souvenir we brought home from our last trip to our beloved Tahoe retreat Sorensen's.
we were lucky enough to be able to spend our last christmas up there and we LOVED, LOVED, LOVED every second of it.

instead of cutting down a fresh tree we decided to build ourselves a Solstice Tree with the gifts from the woods. all these wonderful ideas, stories and the rich history behind the Winter Solstice can be found in this wonderful book.

we decided to bring the tree home with us and it's been the centerpiece of our home ever since.
it was lovely in red during valentines and now will change his coat into green for the month of mr. St. Patrick.

i started with making my (first ever) paper beads.
it took a while to scratch off one side of the cardboard to reveal the ripple pattern behind it.

i then cut the cardboard in stripes, rolled them tightly and tacked them together with hot glue.

et voila, we had our raw material, recycled cardboard beads.

little L and i poured all the green colors we could find out on the table and started dying our beads.

we added some sparkles ... ALWAYS!!!

one can never have enough sparkles in life!

we collected all things green and "stringable"

and made these wonderful, very green bead chains.

et voila, the Solstice Tree got his first green back.

some of the beads were turned into four leaf clovers.

and the tree was shining already, yet it still needed more ...

... gold! always add gold to the green for St. Patrick's day, as I was told by my big L.

so we covered the branches in shimmering, four leaf clovers (I splurged an bought a stamp press :)

and now the tree looks rather dashing in his sparkling green and golden dress.

now we have one, last piece missing.
the tree topper!

little L has been working on it quite a bit.
she "borrowed" a few cars from her sisters extensive car collection, collected all colors of the rainbow and  ...

created her very own rainbow

she added a wee bit of sparkle et voila ... a rainbow the topper.

we are adding some final touches to the rainbow and will reveal the final product as soon as it has been completed.

for now i hope you enjoyed our little craftiness and were inspired to add a little green gold and a rainbow to your life as well.

~ be well

the apron skirt

it all started on a rainy tuesday afternoon.

little L's preschool teachers had changed up her class room and added a little cafe corner with coffee maker, paper cups, register and all. 

so on this rainy afternoon at home, the Ls were doing their own thing ...

i started thinking that if one works in a fancy pre-school cafe, one must have the proper attire!

i stumbled upon these two links ( lilblueboo and this tutorial) and kind of made my own version, combining the two.

i used fun fabrics out of my HUGE stack and went to work.

et voila (5 hours later) our little cafe barista had a heart and soul works apron skirt to show off.

as you can see, the two front pockets offer lots of room for all sorts of must-have-utensils for every barista (like a potato smasher and a pan cake flipper ;).
my little barista tested the strength of my seams rather well ... thank god for my new judy 2.0, which performs rather superb when it comes to sewing tight seams.

i absolutely LOVE the fun fabric combination!

i added a rick-rackseam to make it look a bit more finished and FUN.

in an on-the-job-test the new apron skirt reached high marks for storability, comfort and durability as well as its AMAZING esthetic looks :)

the marks for the customers were not so high :)

after the first proto-type worked out so well the little barista ordered a dora-apron-skirt and one for her little friend K from school, who recently had a b-day.
little L helped with the prep-work ...

and after another few sewing-filled hours we had three heart and soul works apron skirts.

little mrs. K loves princesses, so naturally we had to make her a royal apron skirt.

and little L's dora skirt turned out very purplelicious!

the two apron skirts for little L have been in use quite often.
apparently some baristas work and sleep on their work attire :)

addendum to the use of the pockets:
the pockets are an excellent hiding spot for chocolates stolen from the valentines stash of older sisters and also offer proper space for bark, rocks, sand, dirty feathers, miscellaneous treasures (aka garbage)  collected at the play ground :)

i am taking birthday present orders for little  heart and soul works apron skirts now!!!

~ be well