Callaloo Soup

Process Not Product | Organic Art With Kieran

This drawing by Kieran happened in a completely natural and organic way. He didn't set out to make a drawing of a pirate ship at all. I like to let him do open-ended art, and on this day I set him up with some "art starters"

The first one was using negative shapes: I punched some shapes out of a piece of paper and gave it to him with some markers

He started by drawing around the shapes, than drawing lines between them

 

Then he noticed that since he was drawing on his big art book, that the punched paper acted as a stencil

So he doodled on a bit on the drawing he created by chance.

He then turned the original punched piece over and continued drawingm this time around the cut-outs.

When he was done, I gave him another starter: a sheet with two squares stuck on

He was totally warmed up by now, and drew and drew

Then he asked if he could have some stickers. I grabbed the first set I found, all about pirates. He started sticking them on, then decided to get the blue marker to colour in the sea.

And that's how we ended up with his latest piece of art!

I love how self-directed this activity was. Apart from providing the starting points, there was no involvement from me. And he will spend lots more time working on open-ended projects like these, than ones where we are working towards creating a specific outcome. That's a win-win for sure!

Want to see some more open-ended kid art? Check out my latest post at Make & Takes

Making Daisy Chains

It's school vacation time in France again, so for the next two weeks I'll be taking it easy and spending lots of time with Kieran. Things will slow down on the blog as well and I'll be posting photo postcards daily (but also look out for Filofax Friday!)

Kieran's Street Festival Birthday Party.

A good time was had by all!!

 

Happy Awesome Inspiring Fun Good Stuff

Today my sweet boy turns five. He has been patiently waiting since January, when his classmates started having their fifth birthdays. Love him so so much. I reprised my balloon streamer birthday morning surprise, and he loved it just as much as last year. And yes, those are the same pyjamas. I think we will retire them this year.

How was your week? What fun, edifying or just plain silly things did you enjoy this week? here are some interesting things I found.

Leo Babauta is the master at making me slow down, take stock and try to improve. Here he writes about becoming a morning person. I'll be chewing on this for a while and trying to incorporate some of these techniques.

As a low media advocate, this article about why watching TV is better than swiping an iPad confirmed what I feel to be true

These brilliant literary cartoons from Tom Gauld will have you smiling and nodding your head.

New reports suggest that knitting is good for your brain. Join the knitting revolution with me! I still have a giveaway running for a free class from Craftsy.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

A Year of Wednesdays at Home

When you move to a foreign country, there are things you don’t think about, like, the keyboards being set up differently, or the fact that there is no school on Wednesdays. I quickly got used to the former, but the latter one stumped me for years, even before having a kid. What on earth were they thinking? How could that possibly benefit anyone? How do the parents do it??

Once Kieran started school in 2012 though I had to get with the program. I admit I whined about it a bit, anticipating that a break in my work week would not have a positive effect on this scatter-brained mama. Also, what would I do with him all day long? (As though I hadn’t just spent 3 years with him at home).

In late 2012 I finally got myself a smart phone and the first app I downloaded was Instagram. Shortly after, I started taking photos of Kieran and I as we went through our days together, and it wasn’t long before I had a revelation: this is awesome! This midweek break allowed us to reconnect and recharge for the rest of the week ahead. Not to mention it was like an English immersion day to combat the four days when he heard mostly French spoken.

Looking through my Instagram feed of those photos is like a visual gratitude journal. I think it was Sarah Ban Breathnach, in her book Simple Abundance who first put out this idea of writing down five things you’re grateful for every day. I know that my friend Karen also talks about this, and takes it even further with a photographic gratitude practice like NaPhoPoMo last November.

Our photos from Wednesday have also been fodder for numerous scrapbook pages like this one

and this one

I truly cherish those days Kieran and I spend together, and credit it mostly for the strong connection we have. We rarely do anything fancy, we mostly stick to home.

We work on chores, and might run errands, but I pretty much just let him choose the direction for the day. While I might gather ideas for arts and crafts activities, he spends most of his time in free, self-directed play. Be it making music in his room

building and playing with trains or blocks

or reading

We do a lot of baking together too

It’s been a glorious year. And in September things are changing, and there will be school on Wednesdays, so my plan for the next six months is to make the most of these precious moments. You can check in on us over at Instagram.

 

Callaloo Soup Christmas | Sparkly Peppermint Playdough

Kieran really loves playdough, it's one of those activities that has grown with him. A few weeks ago I downloaded some sea creature characters from Nurture Store for him to play with and he had a blast with them. I jokingly asked Cathy on Instagram if she had any Holiday versions, and she went ahead and created a printout! Gotta love Social Media right?

Of course regular old playdough wouldn't do, so we mixed up a batch of Christmas playdough using this recipe. I used cornstarch (corn flour) instead of regular flour, and also added some peppermint extract for a yummy smell. It's crumblier than the dough we're used to, but was still a big hit!

Oh look, you can see one of the fish sneaked in!

The mat he was playing on became Santa's sleigh, and Santa and his entire entourage went for a nice long ride.

I have a feeling we'll be getting them out again today!

Inspired Fridays | Spaceman Spiff

Inspired Fridays is back for November! This will be the last month I'll be running the series, then I'll be turning the blog over to all things Christmas in December. And in January I will embark on all new journeys!

My inspiration this week came from two sources.

First this advent calendar. I loved the cut out pieces with the pattern showing behind. But I didn't want to do triangles, and then my eye caught this image on my inspiration board.

 

Yes! I was feeling those honeycombs. Here's my page

I think these are my favourite pyjamas that Kieran has had ever. Whenever he wore them we would call him Spaceman Spiff, which he totally didn't get. Hopefully someday he will recognise the reference. Just looking at these photos makes me wish I could find him another one in his size.

I am still loving my mists, and stars and stickers. It will soon be time to restock!

Have a happy weekend folks.

The Wednesday Window | Flashback to Summer

The Days of the Week Are......

Over the last few months Kieran has been more and more interested in the days of the week. Partly due to school (as in wanting to know which days were no school, or no work!), but also in general. When I noticed this, I would start telling him what day it was. "It's Monday today, so you have school"; or "It's Saturday today so there's no school and Papa isn't going to work!'" At which I would always get a "yay!"

He would also try to talk about the past, but everyday in the past is "yesterday", even if he was referring to an event weeks past. And he had latched on to Lundi (Monday), and was calling every day Monday. So I decided to try to support him with a bit more structure, and came across the lovely Waldorf tradition of a colour for each day of the week. Waldorf really emphasises rhythms, which I love. I then found this neat idea for displaying the days, and decided to adapt it.

I posted earlier about how I made the cards using a resist technique. For the gnomes I used some antique styled clothespins and made them hats and shirts from felt.The base is something I picked up at a flea market, and I had no idea what it would be used for until I started looking around for a support for the cards. (Actually I think it was given to me by a vendor when I purchased something else).

I keep everything on a shelf downstairs that is easily seen from the dining table, so every morning at breakfast he can see the gnome and the card on display. He really enjoys the routine. At breakfast we talk about what day it is, the colour for each day, and what will happen that day be it going to school, staying home on Wednesdays, or going grocery shopping on Saturday with Papa.

I'll be reading more about how these colours are used by Waldorf schools (for example each day is related to a particular planet), and slowly incorporate more ideas over time.

How do you teach your little ones about the passage of time and the rhythms of life?

Inspired Fridays | Work is Play

My inspiration this week comes from a series by the artist Beci Orpin.

It's called "Up", and I loved all the bits and pieces. It sent me to my box of scraps, and I am forever grateful that I hang on to even the tiniest piece of paper!

These two photos are of Kieran at "work", helping me fold laundry, and mixing up the bird seed feeders we made last winter. I really wasn't sure what I would title this layout, or even journal about, but as I worked on the page, and remembered the day I took these photos, and how what looked like work to me, was total play for him.

So, some inks, scraps, stamping and a dig through my embellishment drawers. What do you think?