Bringing Waldolf Steiner into your home on a budget

I am a big fan of the beautiful education and learning that comes from the Rudolf Steiner philosophy. I try and incorporate many different tools into my home and draw from anything that I find beautiful or enriching for Rue. I have made most of the materials for this play as the big belief is that:

"Children should have beautiful things in their world" 

Who could argue with this? A lot of the materials available for sale are quite pricey as they are intended to be great quality and last a lifetime. Instead I found ways of getting the same ideas into my home for a fraction of the price. 

I made some play silks using chiffon which was $2m on sale. I got 1m each of green and blue as the ground and the water then rolled the hem to stop it from fraying. I also have a 2m long yellow piece that I use for draping over furniture or as a canopy. 

My peg dolls I made myself. I ordered a large bag of them from AliExpress which is by far the cheapest seller however they can take a month to arrive as they are free delivery and mostly come from China. I painted some and dressed others in felt cloaks. 

My felted playscapes are made from wool roving I sourced on Ebay. There are many sellers so just hunt around for a good deal. I get the 100g bags for about $2 each and you will need about 2 or 3 of these for a small mat. I use a combination of wet and needle felting to get the look I want (great way to use bubblewrap). I will post a tutorial shortly on how to felt. I have a few and want to make a really large one soon but need to source the roving first. 

The wooden houses are the most fun to make. These are 2x4 planks cut on the diagonal using my trusty jig saw, sanded and drawn on using a wood burning tool or soldering iron (about $40 from the hardware store). I then seal them with a combination of bees wax (100g is about $10 and baby oil which is mineral oil, melt the two together about 2 parts wax to 1 part oil which makes a rub once cool). 

I am working on some exciting waldolf steiner inspired things at the moment and can't wait to share them with you all. 

I love wet on wet watercolor how the paint swirls all together like a galaxy