Hemlock House Studio

10/10, recommend.

Uncovered a video I forgot to share this summer of an old backpack I covered with hammered flowers from my garden. It’s truly a beautiful capture of my summer flower garden. The process is so simple but a bit repetitive and time consuming (sorry to my carpal tunnel). I used a variety of coreopsis, cosmos and dyer’s chamomile to decorate it. I’ve already got plans for sowing more varieties of all of these flowers for more hammering this coming year!

I made Oma’s spitzbuben cookies yesterday for our family and wanted to repost this video I made a few years ago. It’s one of my favorite winter traditions.

I have five nieces ages 8-11 and every year I try to get creative with their gifts. In past years I’ve made things like felt food toys, personalized super hero capes, and letter-shaped pillows. Now that they’re getting older and more specific in their preferences I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make surprise balls and have the creative, crafty element be in the wrapping. Surprise balls are a series of small gifts wrapped between layers of colorful crepe paper. As the recipient unravels each layer the gifts are revealed. I thoroughly enjoyed both the curating of each set of gifts and the wrapping of each ball. I can’t wait to watch the unraveling ensue! (And yes I’m mostly whispering in the voiceover to not wake up my precariously asleep children. I’m this committed to spreading my love for surprise balls!)