My kids (and I) have a new hobby: needle (dry) felting. We really love it! It's incredibly easy to do, and so fun. Relaxing too -- the rhythmic movement of poking the needle in the wool is actually super nice.

For needle felting you need just a few supplies: a sponge (a simple kitchen sponge works fine), some felting wool and some special, barbed felting needles. That's all you need for making all sorts of shapes!

An easy start, I thought, is to felt on top of wool felt sheets, and make pretty wool 'paintings' like this. Pim made a book marker as an end-of year gift for his teacher this way.

Or, you can use cookie cutters as a mould and create independent shapes. Ava and Sara made hairbands -- first they made little felt blossoms and hearts, then they felted them to elastic hair bands (using a piece of wool felt to 'glue' the hair band to the shape). It entertained them for a an afternoon and their hairbands turned out really sweet!

xxx Esther