wa'shi gonna do?

'Mum, can I play with your pretty tape?'

Words which could make a washi-lover nervous.

But clearly sticking the pretty is not really the goal here.

Much more fun to make patterns, colour-coordinate, build towers ...

... and of course knock them down!

Clearly washi is an important educational toy, I should probably get more right?

the 46 brazillionth post ever on how to display kiddie art

We haven't done organised crafting for ages ... have we outgrown it? Probably more to do with the fact that our art room has been a revolting, disorganised, uninviting shambles for months, a state I finally remedied these past holidays. 

And jeez did I unearth a lot of art.

Although not crafting as such, we always have paints available on a table in there and over the last while the girls have filled page after page with lovely colours and textures, all left on windowsills to dry and never thought of again.

I tell myself the process is more important than the end product but I still hate throwing these creations away. 

Add to them the mountains of stuff which came home from school at the end of last term and ja, a lot of art.

The pick of the crop I stuck up on one wall, a towering monument to my small people's creativity.

and yes, that's a crate of booze next to the wheel-less trike, because boozing and crafting
go very well together don't you know

And the enormous pile of abstract paintings I sorted and hole-punched with a 2" punch and artfully arranged in a frame I had hanging around (ha ha).

I'd love to do a massive one, in a white frame, but it's a start and I've no doubt those girls will produce much more material for me to use in the future!

hand -and foot- painted t-shirts

They painted these.

I can't help but love Friday's (happy) 'Self with Jewels and Rain'.

And no surprises from her sister either, who methodically and with a plan, did feet on the back, hands on the front, coordinating colours all precisely placed.
She's her Daddy's girl sometimes.

The paints were given to us by a dear friend, who's going through an awful time.

Whenever the girls wear their t-shirts I'm reminded of how blessed I am. It's a good time of year to be reminded of that.

free range art

We've been decidedly non-crafty around here for a while. The girls both make and do so much at school that I think that satisfies their creative bent for the most part, and our lovely 'art room' is pretty cold and dark during the winter months - we tend to gravitate to the sunny north-facing lounge in the afternoons.

Having said that, there's been a fair bit of spontaneous, free range art happening and I have to say I love it. Some of it is even collaborative - on Sunday's request Friday drew her a tree to adorn with leaves, apparently this piece is called a 'celebration of Spring'.

Sometimes I'm asked for specific materials, and sometimes I've just left water colours (least messy paint available), glue and silly sticky things out to be 'discovered'.

There's also still lots of colouring happening. How coy is this mermaid? Friday's been stretching her eyeballs practising the look.

And a bit of art imitating life. We've been finding lots of crabs in the garage and front garden lately, we think they must be following an internal GPS, desperately trying to get through the house to the lake out front.
I wasn't that surprised when I found this little sketch on Friday's table the other day.

But I'm keen for a project again, and have my eye on this one from the sweet new Cape Town blog Tuesdays with Megan. I'll let you know how it works out ...

daddy play dough

This is what happens when Daddy gets asked to make play dough.

Have I mentioned how much we love play dough?

let's talk about colouring*

*And no, I don't mean colouring ...

Colouring-in has gotten a bad rap over the years, the premise being that it stifles kid's creative drawing, use of imagination etc etc blah blah blah.

We're in a big colouring phase (I'm trying to type with a straight face here) and I think it's great.
Firstly, it's super easy to print pages off the internet depending on what they're interested in - in the last month we've been through unicorns (of course), fairies (of course), frogs, bee's, eagles and a medley of patterns and floral designs.
Secondly, what they're learning about colour and shading, and the pencil-grip practise they get puts paid to all other concerns.

Thirdly, they're still totally drawing freehand as well.
Fourthly, printing out and handing them a stack of blank, inspirational pages buys me some time to do other things around the house - and what's not to love about that?
And lastly, we've seen such a huge improvement in Sunday's colouring skills in just a few weeks. From random scrawls, to real progress in keeping between the lines and using different colours etc.

My favourite thing at the moment is to listen in on them working together. Real discussion about colour choices and the personalities of the figures they're colouring or the stories behind their pictures.

Imagination, creativity, sisterly bonding - all of this is good. Now if someone would invent a self-sharpening pencil crayon I'd be completely happy.

diy fizz ballz: don't do it!

In preparation for Friday's 6th birthday party in a couple of weeks we've been making fizz balls (bath bombs) to go in the party packs.
'Something I've Wanted To Do for Ages' meet 'Perfect Opportunity'. I'm sure you'll be very happy together.

Or ... not.

Frankly these were a mission, and after 4 batches (mostly unsuccessful) and still a few hearts short of the number we need to fill all the party packs, I'm SO OVER THEM.

Don't be put off by the vast quantity of ingredients - they're all easily obtainable (brandy optional, not actually for the fizz balls you understand) - and the instructions I followed here were very clear and helpful.

And the ones that worked are very cute and pink and rose-smelling. Friday has carefully labelled them all 'bath' due to concerns that her friends may eat them.

But each batch was tryingly hit and miss and I'm not really sure why. Obviously sometimes the mix was too dry, sometimes too wet - but we measured very carefully, honest. Possibly the recent weather was a factor too - rainy days are not very conducive to drying powder.
I'm tempted to say that all in all the project was a bit of a balls up but you know ... cheap joke.

Luckily similarly to baking experiments, there are always those in this household prepared to make the most of the failed attempts - the girls have had some very pink 'n fizzy baths recently.

But still we must make more! Just a few more ... and then NEVER AGAIN I tell you, never again.

a necessary list

Yesterday evening, a little terrified at the prospect of being stuck indoors all weekend in this rainy weather, I got out the whiteboard and commissioned a list.

A List for a Rainy Weekend.

The first thing on the list quickly became 'play with board', but then we got down to business. My favourite item is Friday's idea, to 'wear cuddly clothes'.

So far we've completed items 1, 3 and 5. And as it turns out that 3 ('watch circus') meant Cirque du Soleil and Madagascar 3 (polkadotpolkadotpolkadotafro), we've kind of stalled there.

It's good to know we've got a few more plans in the works for when we need them though.

If you're in Cape Town, stay warm and dry!

flower wreath of sanity

Back in March when I was going a little mental with the full-time-mothering-a-wild-monster thing I reminded myself that the thing which consistently makes me happy (besides Converse), and the most productive (in the restoration of heart and soul sense) thing I could do with my scant free time – was to make something.

So over the last few months I made this.

Egg carton flower wreath found, of course, through Pinterest.

The process of making small, precise snips through the (surprisingly) tough carton was deeply satisfying, especially after particularly frustrating days. As a friend remarked: ‘So instead of throwing lawn furniture around you’re cutting flowers?’ Yip, I'm a cutter, not a chucker.

I kinda liked them unpainted too. Maybe that would've made a more sophisticated piece!

It was also great to have a project I could work on in small stages, finding a moment here and there to cut some petals. Later the painting also happened in fits and starts – sometimes while the girls were busy painting too, sometimes after they were in bed. They even painted a couple of blooms themselves, which I fixed up afterwards!

This was my project and I was surprised and pleased at how they respected that. We have always been firm on respecting other people's ‘work’ – something Friday first picked up at her Montessori playgroup, and I think it’s paid off.

Every step of the project was fun and while the end product is a little ‘crafty’ – only just stopping short of painted macaroni really – it’s made me very happy, relieved a lot of my tension through a difficult time and will brighten up a corner of our home over the coming winter months.

lessons in rice

These photos are from back in February. I have a feeling it was the first morning I got an inkling that my next few months at home with Sunday weren't going to be all plain sailing ...

It started off alright, a little girl very busy doing funny little girl things.

See that tray of coloured rice? I left it there naively thinking it would extend her solo play time, while I got some work done.
2 colours rice and some pouring and scooping toys. What's not to love right?

It was all going swimmingly until I mixed the rice. And something in her then-nearly-3-year-old make-up VIOLENTLY OBJECTED to such an outright parental disrespect for the natural order of dyed rice segregation.
In short, all hell broke loose (no photos supplied).

In those early days of tantrum hell my first response was to IMMEDIATELY FIX THE PROBLEM and so ...

... we quickly set about dying new batches of rice.
(See that sweet clear-eyed face, showing no trace of recent demonic fury and rage.)

Each colour carefully and prettily segregated as they dried in the sunshine. And then very carefully and prettily separately decanted into a plastic muffin tray from the recycling.

Whereupon what was the first thing she did? MIXED THE COLOURS OF COURSE.

In retrospect there were a lot of lessons learnt that day, about the deep complexities of the 3 year old mind. About trying to apply adult logic to a very non-adult small person.
And in the months since we've learnt how very many games, crafts and fun times can be had with a simple batch of coloured rice.

For all of us.

We've also learnt how spilled uncooked rice will stick to your toes and spread throughout your house in ways we could never have imagined.
This batch of rice served us well, but finally, today, I swept up and chucked the last of it. And like the tantrums which held us all hostage these past months (but have started to abate) I hope not to see any more dyed rice around here for a long, long time.

weekend of industry

It was a project-based weekend.

All of us had one. Most, more than one.

And predictably they are all still just like this, scattered about the house, thumbing their noses at the looming Monday morning.
Except for that delicious pulla of course, just enough remains to have with my coffee tomorrow. As I contemplate the happy mess.

marble painting

I've noticed that, especially with my older girl, there can be some resistance if it's felt I'm being too 'instructive'.
I suppose it makes sense that if I'm the person always instructing them about eating properly, dressing properly (knickers are NOT optional wear!), wearing sunblock etc they don't want to feel too dictated to when it comes to fun things, like art projects.

So this past weekend, knowing they've both done this at school, I asked them to 'show me' how to do marble painting.
I feigned complete ignorance and took instruction as to what we'd need, how to go about it etc.

A plastic muffin tray was pulled from the recycling box, 3 paint colours were chosen and a hunt around the house produced 3 different size marbles and some old medicine spoons for transferring paint-covered spheres to awaiting virgin paper. Their respective teachers taught them well!

With lots of: 'See Mum? This is how you do it', the lesson began.

These 'kitty litter' trays from the plastic shop have proved their worth (R20!) time and time again!

And then we came to the part about home art which I've always struggled with, and I think they especially love precisely because it's so unlikely to happen in a classroom environment: getting down and dirty!

For why stick to marbles if your fingers are right there at the end of your inquisitive hands?

And so endth the lesson, and the last dregs of paint!

paper flowers

As much as I love doing crafts with the kids, sometimes I need to do some of my own. I think it's good for them to see me busy with my own projects too. Most of my creativity goes into writing, not something they're able to appreciate, or access, yet.

Seeing me in front of my computer is certainly more frustrating than inspiring for them!

Found on Pinterest naturally, designed by the utterly inspiring Made by Joel. Visit the link for the how-to - so easy! - and stick around to check out all the other remarkable things he makes.

Lots of printables and downloads available there too.

The spare loo in our new house has this silly (and very, very ugly) permanent tooth glass/brush holder thingie attached to the wall. It's been calling out for some prettification for months now.

Much better.

fun with bicarb of soda

We happen to have a 20kg sack of bicarbonate of soda in the house (doesn't everyone?). Known as baking soda by Americans, it seems to have a myriad uses.
We used some for our clay Xmas ornaments, husband uses it for soda-blasting, and today we found another fun thing to do with it.

A tray of baking soda, a couple of containers of vinegar with a few drops of food colouring (we only had two blue and green at hand this time) and a couple of medicine droppers.

The droppers were soon discarded in favour of small syringes, which made for much more satisfying application.

It's very cool how the bicarb fizzes and bubbles when the vinegar makes contact.

And an unexpected result was the fun to be had afterwards. With a silky, sticky, powdery texture the coloured bicarb proved to be almost more entertaining than the fizzing, and the game lasted for ages.

You'll want to do this one outside though, or in an easily cleanable space - and although it's not great for photography, I'm once more very grateful for our 'art room'.