It's Christmas at Spiral Garden

The wonderful Melissa Baker has worked her magic again, and transformed Spiral Garden's main page for Christmas 2010. Isn't is such a peaceful image?

Don't forget to keep an eye on our New Products pages, which are being updated daily.

Gaia's Garden

Re-introducing Gaia's Garden, a co-operative game stocked by Spiral Garden for a few years, and played with by our family for a few more.

This game is now packaged in a bag made from certified organic cotton and screen printed with earth pigments - a completely natural process.

Gaia's Garden was produced on 100% recycled paper and 100% recycled cardboard. The game board is printed with vegetable inks and vegetable based varnish. The paper is mounted to the cardboard using homemade flour paste, made with organic wheat flour.

Living Earth Games are doing their best to improve their products to make them more environmentally friendly and more child friendly.

With team work, we have more possibilities and we can reach more goals. Play and work together to plant the whole garden and to prevent the pest insects from eating the crops.

Gaia's garden invites the gardeners to plant vegetables in their garden to have food to eat. Unfortunately, pest insects enjoy these yummy vegetables too. Luckily, predator insects are chasing and eating the pest insects, helping the gardeners.

Will the gardeners be quick enough to plant the vegetables in a beneficial companionship or will the pest insects have a chance to attack?

For 2 to 6 players, for ages 4 to adult. Playing time: 30 – 60 minutes. A detailed booklet with examples of how to play is included.

From Dr Hilary Whitehouse (Science and environmental education):

"The companion planting game introduces players to the ecological concept of pest and predator insect species. It is dynamic and replicates how a garden can be created. A balance is eventually created through companion planting. The game is non-competitive which is quite a novel concept to children accustomed to playing competitive games. The children seemed to enjoy the co-operative structure of the game.

This is the real success of the game, that it is able to develop knowledge of ecological concepts with young children in an effective and exciting way.

The children wanted to play the game for over an hour straight, which is a very positive recommendation...

I am sure other teachers would be happy to use it with their classes. Teachers and parents are always looking for attractive and useful materials through which to develop learning with children, and I would assess the game as being such..."

Also available from Living Earth Games through Spiral Garden: Living Landscapes Juggling Balls Single Ball

More about the Moon

Here's Iris, one of the creators of our Moontime Diary 2011, explaining a little more about the significance of the moon's cycles in our lives. Enjoy!

Summer Solstice

On 22nd December 2010, it will be the Summer Solstice in the southern hemisphere. A Solstice is an astronomical event, but is most commonly identified as the longest or shortest day of the year, a mid-season celebration to acknowledge the turning of the wheel.

For some families who don't wish to celebrate a religious holiday in December, Solstice gatherings and gifts are a popular alternative.
Some gift ideas for solstice from Spiral Garden include:

Fire Flower Flamers and The Earthy Men by Susan Whitehead - a book for Under 7s.
Summer Card from Susan Laidlaw
Summer Craft Pack from Rainbow Made & Spiral Garden
Summer Doll from the Seasonal Doll Collection by Rainbow Made
Summer Sunshine Felt by Rainbow Made
A Playcloth in silk, muslin or cotton - in your choice of summer colours
A wood & paper folding fan
An item of jewelery from our hand-selected range
Soap and face cloths
2011 Diary
Window Star
Barefoot Magazine subscription

or just about anything from our unique range of toys, books, art and craft items and more!

Southern Hemisphere Seasonal Exchange

Here's something not organised by Spiral Garden, but I thought I would share as it seems like it would certainly interest a lot of you. It's from one of our customers, Katie, and I'm going to sign up, maybe one of you will be my swap partner?


Ready for a ‘Summertime’ crafting challenge?

Southern Hemisphere Seasonal Exchange is inspired by the small nature table Katie has tried to start for her young children to mark the changing of the seasons. She has found most material and craft project sourced for inspiration is often based on seasons in the northern hemisphere which is not always relevant to us. Seasonal changes where we live in the southern
hemisphere can be subtle and quite different from what is happening in the northern hemisphere.

Like her children, Katie is learning about the unique seasonal differences in Australia. She is new to crafting and new to keeping a nature table. She would love some inspiration and is sure other people would as well.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have Seasonal Craft exchange reflective of the seasons of the Southern Hemisphere? A crafting challenge, a chance to create your own symbolic item reflective of the current season and a chance to inspire a stranger through your chosen craft...

As it is a busy time of year, to participate you need to include a minimum of one handmade item that you can swap with your allocated partner.



Guidelines:
* The swap is related to the theme - Summertime.
* The swap is open to everyone. You don’t have to live in the Southern Hemisphere to participate!
* You must be willing to mail overseas and honour your swap commitment.
* Participants will be allocated one (only) swap partner. You will send directly to your partner and they will send directly to you. Swap partners will be randomly allocated.
* No prior crafting/ art skills required.
* Participation should be done in the spirit of openness, appreciation and sharing. The only requirement is the item you send should be handmade by you with love and care. Make something special that you would love to receive yourself.
* No returns!
* The exchange is open to all ages.
* All packages must be mailed by the 1st December, the first day of summer and should be suitable to send in the mail.



Requirements:
* At least one, no more than five items are to be sent.
* One of these items must be handmade. It can be an object, an artwork, an ornament, small handmade book, something to display. The key requirement is it is something made by you.
* If you would like to include additional items things that could be included might be items from nature (unless you are shipping internationally), a card, additional artworks, a candle, purchased items made from natural materials (no plastic/polyester/foam/etc) etc.
* All of the items must be seasonally appropriate.
* You may want to include in your package a little blurb about your items and/or yourself.
* In addition, it would be wonderful if you were able to document the process of making and the final product. These images can be posted on the Flickr group Southern Hemisphere Seasonal Exchange.



How Do I Sign Up?
Sign ups will take place until 18th of November.
The first 100 people to sign up are in!
Please email Katie with your Real Name, Mailing address (in English) and Email address to be entered into the swap.

Your privacy will be respected and your details will not be passed on unless you give permission.
Partners will be allocated after sign-ups have closed. Katie will confirm when you have been added to the list. Please be patient, this may take a couple of days.

As mentioned previously, Katie is a mother of two very young children, new to crafting and has never undertaken co-coordinating something like this before, so your patience and understanding is really appreciated.

Inspiration
Thanks to Seasons Round Exchange and New Zealand Handmade Christmas Ornament Swap.
for inspiring the idea of the craft swap.

Seasons Round Exchange
The SavVy { Seasons } - a modern Swap
Soft trees Swap
Rhythm of the Home
Seasons South and North

Summer Craft Pack
White Craft Pack
Create @ Spiral Garden

Moontime Planning Diary 2011

I've really enjoyed using this comprehensive and user-friendly moon diary during 2010. It's A5 size, 162 pages. The pages are 7 days to an opening, with plenty of space for notes.

Live a healthy lifestyle
Grow abundant gardens
Housekeeping, renovating and building

It is all about timing your activities. Surely you have found that sometimes routine jobs turn out better than at other times? Or maybe you have noticed that the lawn at certain times grows back faster than at other times? We know that fishermen always go out with the tide instead of struggling against it.

Yes, there is method in the madness, which is where the moon comes in. All growing things are influenced by the ever changing moon.

Our aim is to inspire you to create a healthy lifestyle in tune with the moon and other natural cycles. Everyday practical suggestions tell you how you can tune in to the moon’s cycles and the year’s seasons. These suggestions help you to make a difference that doesn’t cost the earth.

The Moontime Planning Diary 2011 combines the solar calendar with the moon phases and positions. Daily pointers make it easy for you to access and experience the influence the moon has on your health, garden and home care.

The Moontime Diary 2011 features all the diary essentials plus
• Introduction on how to fine tune to the moon
• Helpful tables
• World map to convert time
• Daily moon and planetary aspects
• Aspect interpretations
• Moon void of course
• Monthly ephemeris
• Printed on 100% recycled paper

Created in Mullumbimby, Australia by Iris and Gisela.

Faraway Felt

One of the best things about owning Spiral Garden is knowing the talented artists who create our stock.

Abby and Michelle from Faraway Felt both live on a strata-title community in northern NSW. They live on solar power, tank water and have vegie gardens, orchards, chooks and other animals (ponies, cows, ducks).

Abby has 2 children (7 and 4) and Michelle has 3 (11, 9 and 3). Their kids go to the local Steiner school (Rainbow Ridge) which Abby is heavily involved in. Michelle is studying a Primary Teaching degree.

Faraway Felt use 100% Australian fine merino wool, mulberry silks, ribbons and recycled fabrics to create their range. Garden Flags are the first product from them we have on offer.

These are lovingly created hand-made felt flags. Merino wool is wet-felted into unique pieces of art to decorate your bedrooms, classroom, living area, the entrance to your home or seasonal table. In each set of flags, there are seven flags sewn onto dark green ribbon. The garden flags depict a pale blue sky with the fluffiest of gentle white clouds, rich green grass and plants with beautiful flowers. They are a high-quality heirloom item, these durable flags will last.

We have some garden flags hanging above the seasonal table in the entrance area of our home, and they have received many delighted comments.