Are schools killing creativity?

This video of a lecture by Sir Ken Robinson has affected me so much, it has been on my mind for several days now. Very thought-provoking, hilarious and insightful. Thanks go to Leigh, over at Marvelous Kiddo for sharing it.

Sneak peek...

As I am typing this, I have in the kiln these very pendants that I intend to sell this weekend at the local Mother's of Multiples consignment sale that goes on every year. It will be my first event as a VENDOR.

Eeek!

I will also be doing foot and hand print ornaments there. Come by and see me and tell me how I'm doing! I will be the one with the purple and green "Where Is Thumbkin" banner who looks really calm, cool, and collected.

(wink.)

I adore these!

Are these bookplates absolutely stunning or what? I found myself a new favorite etsy seller:

Oiseaux

Thanks so much to Leslie, from A Room Somewhere for posting about these!

For Daddy.

I know I am months behind on this one, but I had to share what we made for Father's Day this year. First of all, I am a HUGE fan of Family Fun magazine, and I have bought many a gift subscription for family and friends. Check out their craft section and be inspired. We have made a toad house out of terra cotta pots, green and pink paint and glue, a bird feeder out of a plastic water bottle and two wooden spoons, numerous decorative cakes and cupcakes, Christmas trees out of Styrofoam cones, green felt, pins, sequins and beads, Fourth of July t-shirts and decorations, and so many more things. We love every minute of each craft, and the memories we have made doing each project is priceless. One day I will do another rave about Family Fun and post pictures of all of our projects. But this one is for Daddy.


I strung them up, clothesline style, with clothespins and a bit of string and waited for Daddy to notice. After all of our giggling and eye rolling, he finally noticed the cards and fawned over them appropriately. He even went as far as to tell us which of the styles he would wear. Unfortunately, all of them but mine. He said it was too 80's. Hmmmph.

(Mine.)

(Eleanor's)

(Ben's)

(Ian's)

All it took was some wallpaper samples (Freecycle, thank you very much! I had secured a boxful of them for dollhouse decorating purposes), some buttons, some glue, and of course, a sense of menswear styling. Ahem. So. The boys couldn't be bothered, so Eleanor and I took it upon ourselves to make theirs. This was one of my favorite projects for these reasons: I love using buttons, they turned out even better than the magazine examples, and they were so quick to make! I know I probably sound like a rep for Family Fun, but I love them THAT much.

Disclaimer: Boys are harder to photograph.

During the lull....

Since our son had been diagnosed with autism, life has been a flurry of paperwork, appointments, meetings and just plain veg-out zombie time. Something's gotta give, and marketing my business was one of those things. No marketing of course means no customers, so I have been having a little break these days. I have actually been having some fun doing samples -- including a plaque for our beloved Henry-dog, plaques from my friend's teeny 4 week old, and some fun little pendants. I'm not sure what made me interested in experimenting with pendants, but I rolled out some clay, stamped some designs up with my little girl and had some fun. My nieces were in town, so they painted pendants for themselves and Eleanor did some others. They were excited to see how they turned out and I am glad they were able to take something home with them. Maybe next time we can do something bigger!

I took some shots of the kiln before and after firing. I am really loving this new clear glaze I have been using...it goes on nice and smooth and GREEN with hardly any dripping issues. I know, it is a pretty pathetic kiln load...and don't mind my bare feet, please.

Before:

After:

The fruits of our labor:

One of my favorite plaques so far. Love the new text and I may use a wire instead of a ribbon for hanging.


And my Henry-dog. I have fired this twice, hoping the little pinholes in the glaze would fire out, but it is what it is...I love it.

Nice Notes

I came across this wonderful site called Operation Nice. They have these little note cards you can download and write a message to any stranger who happens to run across it. This is an example of what they encourage others to do:


You want to know what I plan to do? Go to the malls, in the women's dressing rooms -- stick one on the mirror. It will say:

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!

I just remembered...

Tonight as I was lying with Benjamin, trying to get him to sleep -- among all of his wiggles and leg kicks -- I let my mind wander to his babyhood. I thought about his smallness. His tiny nose. Fine, fine blonde hair. His hands. Hands. Hmmm. Something in my brain was connecting this moment of sleep struggle to his baby hands. What was it? My memory is not as sharp as it used to be, and seems to get worse as the daily wear and tear of the business of life as a very busy mommy leaves no room or time to reflect on the past. I have never been a good recorder of events, much to my dismay, since you would think a person who values nostalgia and sentimentality would be on top of things like that. A journal was given to me when he was born, and I wrote his birth story, up until a point. The part where I had to write about the period of time after we were told he would probably not survive...I quit writing. It was just too difficult. Then the whirlwind came: multiple children, therapies, school issues, toilet training, Yo Gabba Gabba, disintegrating synapses -- and there you go.

And so I was granted a memory tonight. Remembering Ben's wrinkly little baby hands, I was struck -- there it was! When he was a small baby, and we were living in a little log cabin with a red tin roof in the mountains. I put him to sleep every night and every nap with by nursing him on our bed. Sometimes he was reluctant to go to sleep and I discovered that if I rubbed that little wrinkly spot on his hand where his thumb met his forefinger, it would put him to sleep almost instantly. That little action was so soothing to him for some reason, and I always marveled at how adorable he looked in those quiet moments, eyes rolling back with sleepy surrender.

I miss those days, and I know my husband does too. We frequently talk about what an easy and sweet baby he was, the little singleton...then the others came and he grew and life became more and more chaotic. Those quiet sleepy moments alone became less frequent, especially after weaning. When we moved from our cabin to a more traditional home, he was happy to be plopped in his crib at bedtime and would jump and jump until he became sleepy enough to lay down for the night. When he moved to a bed, we had to start laying down with him to get him to sleep. In the beginning, it was hard. He wanted his freedom, and sleep wasn't part of his plan. We would have to lay with him for hours every night, redirecting, pulling him back into bed, putting a leg on top of him, which was supposed to be pretty calming because of the sensory issues he had. And then we discovered melatonin...Oh. The. Relief.

We still need to lay down with him to get him to sleep, but he usually falls asleep within about 15 minutes. Tonight was a more "active" night, so as I remembered the hand trick I used to do, I tried it again on him. I was interested to see if he would remember it. Guess what?

He loved it. Asked for it a few times before he fell into a nice deep sleep.