capes and wolves and scary stories

 I made Maggie a Little Red Riding Hood cape for Valentine's Day.

 I lined it with this adorable woodland print, complete with badgers 

and hedgehogs and ferns and mushrooms.

 I'm pretty sure we had every book illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman

 in our kids' childhood library.

Her illustrations are magical and Caldecott medal worthy.

We sent a copy to Maggie.

I wondered if the story was too spooky for a two and a half year old.

But then I remembered that we read scary stories to our kids as long

as there was a happy ending.

And we made sure there was time to talk about what had happened

and how it might relate to the world we live in.

(There are all sorts of "big, bad wolves" in this world).

 I wrapped the gifts up with a birch heart and cedar clipping.

The pattern came from this little book.

I had to trace the patterns onto tissue paper, which was a bit of a bother,

but the cape went together beautifully.

What fun it is to imagine Maggie down in Brooklyn,

wearing a forest inspired cape.

Some day Maggie will be back in Vermont,

and we can go walking in the woods, 

for real.

:-)

(also, thank you so much for your sweet comments on my last post,

they were much appreciated)