bubble burst

This post is a little ode to a fantastic blog that is going into retirement. Childhood Magic will be sorely missed, but I feel blessed with all the fantastic ideas and inspiration I have gleaned from there.



If you pop over here, you can read about how to make your own bubbles. 

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ETA: Childhood Magic has closed its archives off entirely, so I will give a brief description on how to make the wand.  Sticks, pencils, doweling all work well for handles.  Into these you can screw in an eye hook to hold the string in place.  While you are gathering stuff up, you will need all cotton (butcher's thread) string - no polyester blend at all - and a metal washer (for weight on the bottom string). 

Cut your top string for desired width (depending on the arm span of your bubble makers), and then cut another string twice as long.  Tie one side of the top (shorter) string to one stick (either right on the stick or to the eye hook) and then attach the other end to the other stick.  For the bottom string, slip the washer on the string (to dangle loosely) and then tie the ends onto the sticks.  Done bubble maker.

For bubble solution, I used a liberal dose of dish soap in water.  And that's all.  It takes a bit of practice to get the big bubbles going, but it's lots of fun trying.  Enjoy!

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We did simplify the bubble wand a bit. Instead of doweling, we just used sticks we found in the backyard. At first we tried the eye hooks, but eventually, as the sticks became wet, we just tied the string right to the stick and it worked just as well. As others have found, a good dose of Seventh Generation dish soap in rainwater works very well.

I normally dislike blowing bubbles (too sticky), but making these biggies is oddly addictive. It's also a bit of a spectator sport too, with lots of advice from the crowd.  I recommend making up several wands if you are heading to any parties.  It could easily be turned into sport, especially if there are any competitive grown ups around with more than one glass of wine in them.



By the way, there will always be a crowd. Big bubbles draw attention from everybody. I suggest staying away from busy roads.  I am considering selling bumper stickers that read "I break for big bubbles".



The best part is how big bubbles reminded me how competent my babies are.



And how much fun it can be to celebrate each other achievements.



So thank you Childhood Magic, for your sharing your life and art with us.  You have given me more than I could of asked for, and I appreciate it all.  It may be the end of the blog, but the beauty will stay with me for a long time to come.

Attention! Attention please!

Ahem.

I have a few messages to pass along, particularly for those of you who feel you do not have enough things to sew ;D

First up, the Fair Weather Jacket sizes 5-8 pattern is now available once again at my Etsy shop.

Thank you for your patience with me, I know its been awhile since the pattern has been posted.  I have been pondering making a printable pdf version available, but it would mean some thirty pages to print, then reassemble into pattern pieces with glue or tape.  Great for puzzle lovers, but still feels a bit onerous to me.  However, if any of you feel strongly about having a pdf version, let me know and I will reconsider it :)

Next to know is that the paper version of the Tiered Patchwork Twirler (toddlers and preschoolers) is also in the shop.  I have to share with you this version of the twirler, made by Kelly of An Apple and a Tree blogging fame.

Kelly made this batik twirler using one piece of batik printed fabric.  With the squares cut, she was able to divvy them up into colour groups and create this gorgeous fade effect. 

I adore it.  I've always looked at the batiks in the fabric shop but could never envision a project for it.  I may have to break my no-more-twirlers rule just this one time (ha).

In case you were wondering, yes, Kelly also has an Etsy shop with all sorts of upcycled awesomeness.  Check out An Apple and a Tree on Etsy.

Third, I've been DISCOVERED!  My modeling career has been launched!  (You can tell it's me by my distinctive markings :D)

Crystal of HeartSong Farms made a handy little pdf pattern for a market/vendor apron, and she asked if I could try it out.  I loved it, great, solid vendor's apron, and I even took a picture of myself making it.  And, behold, I'm on my way to fame and fortune!

While we are all waiting here for my millions of fans to notice me, you can go check out this excellent pattern.  Crystal also blogs over at Solidity Of Rainbows, if you were ever curious what a homeschooling mom of five  is up to.  You can also harass her gently if you would like to see a child's version of the market apron - I believe she has one on the drawing board.

Lastly, (I think), you will notice a few additions to the sidebars soon.  I have decided to explore the fruitful world of sponsorship.  I will be putting up some information on what is happening and how you can become a sponsor of Indietutes your own self over the next few days.

Oh, one more thing: I have a sewing tutorial coming soon too!  But it's a summer dress, so I'd better get a wiggle on.  (Somebody send me some more time!)  Stay tuned for another great tutorial :D

Oh, oh, one last thing, promise:  Yes!

bug lite

If you wanted to sum up our home school subjects you could list them as Pioneers, Sun and Stars, and Bugs.

Especially bugs.

This is what I find exciting about our interest led sort of learning: the whole family gets involved and learns along with the child.

Who doesn't love bugs?

This praying mantis, like the stick insect, is not native to our area. 

No matter.  I'm sure the mini-beasts inhabiting our backyard have gotten used to strangers.

As for Smootch, the more bugs the merrier.

flipping over

I was tidying up the refrigerator door, our art gallery, and reallocating Smootch's less recent artwork to a file, when something caught my eye.

You know those pads of art paper for they sell for children that come with a "frame" for their artwork.  Usually some sort of adult drawn theme, rainbows, ocean life, flowers and such.  Smootch usually receives at least one of these 'framed' paper art pads every gifting holiday, along with some felts or crayons.  Smootch usually jumps on them, new art supplies are always welcome around here, and fills up the papers in due time.

Take a look at her pictures - do you notice the same thing I did?

When Smootch draws inside the 'frame', she draws according to the theme set by the paper.  Fish and mermaids in the ocean theme, rockets in the space theme.  Heck, she draws, sometimes, exactly what she sees.

This self limiting of subject matter Smootch does consistently whenever she uses these pre-framed papers.

But here is why I'm not freaking out.

When Smootch decides to draw, she has a choice of papers in the drawer. Everything from newsprint, construction papers, quality pen and ink papers, a variety of neon sheets intended for the recycle but put in the drawer instead because of a blank backside, and whatever else happens to come our way, including these 'frame' art papers.  Lots of options.

Smootch, honestly, usually grabs whatever is on top. If she ends up with one of these frame papers, she has another choice to make: which side of the paper is the top and which is the bottom. There is, after all, a completely blank side and a 'framed' side. Our adult minds automatically assume the framed side is the front and the blank the back. But Smootch doesn't quite have all our rules down yet and considers both sides to be fair game.

When Smootch is in the mood to draw but does not have any particular subject in mind, she will often draw on the side with the 'frame', allowing the frame's theme to influence her. Watching her try to copy the pictures in the frame, I would make a guess that she is working on her technical drawing skills and learning how to 'see' something that she wishes to draw. She seems engaged and, dare I say, challenged.

However, when Smootch has something predetermined to draw that has nothing to do with the frame theme, she will flip the paper blank side up and follow her internal vision. The frame is on the back, ignored except as the side where she sometimes puts a dedication to whomever the drawing is for.

And that's just it, why I'm not concerned about these framed papers limiting Smootch's creativity. There are limits on almost everything we do. It's our choice whether we are going to internalize those limits and let them become our rules, or if we're going to go our own way. Sometimes it pleases us to stay within the frame set before us and go with the flow. There is value in harmony, even if we didn't choose the tune. Other times, we have to completely reject the frame, flip the whole thing over, and do our own thing.

I would love to get rid of the art frame paper entirely and never put limits on Smootch's drawings (except for the size of the paper, and the marking materials, and the paper itself and not the wall or her brother, and some other stuff but I think you get the idea).  But it think it would just as restrictive to say that this paper is good but this other one is bad, based my own aesthetic judgments and justifying them through the greater good of supposed unlimited creativity.  Instead, when it comes to her art at least, I will let her find the world just as it is and let her grow and learn with it's many imperfections and limitations. 

Besides, there are so many other areas of her life where I get to restrict what she does and where she does it.  I think I can take a break on this one just a bit, yes?

stick insect

This is the nearly the only view I have of Smootch of late.

She is a bug hunter.  Extraordinaire. 

If I was stranded on a deserted island can could have only one tool with by which to help education my children, it would be a magnifying glass.   Plus, we could use it start fires.

In our neck of the woods, the bugs are plentiful, but not particularly impressive, at least by the standards set by The Bug Zoo in Victoria.  Mostly ants and mosquitoes in our urban area.  I'm not sure if Smootch was trying to invigorate the local scenery or just make her contribution to the microcosms that is our backyard, but she came up with this creepy little number yesterday:



To make a stick insect, Smootch found a regular, small stick.  With help from her father, she cut three pieces of wire, each about six inches long.  Wrapping the mid points of the wires around the stick gave her six legs.



To continue on with our bug study, Smootch and I will be making journals this afternoon to record her discoveries.  One small field notebook for her pocket, and a larger one to illustrate and explain.  Then I hope there is enough time during Birdie's nap to read her a copy of Girls Who looked Under Rocks by Jeannine Atkins.  I love it when two of Smootch's passions collide, and I'm eager to read her of stories of scientists who worked during the nineteen and early twentieth century pioneer era. 

I am starting to feel a bit more comfortable about what our home school is going to look like.  Smootch, of course, makes it easy, being the type of person who doesn't wait for an invitation to learn about something.  Everyday Smootch discovers something new and I learn a bit more about learning. 



I have a question for you all: hands up if you want me to share a bit more of our home school activities and explorations on this blog.  Not all of it falls under the 'creative' theme per se, and we are rather new at this and, frankly, really don't know what we are doing.  Still, would you like it if I further expand the subject matter here at Indietutes and to join us as we stumble along our unschooling journey?

worth it

Every once in awhile I get a comment from a friend, online or in the physical world, who tells me she would love to blog as I do, but she is not a good enough writer. 

Not good enough. 

My first thought is this declaration of incompetence means something like, 'The words on the screen do not feel as magical as the images and emotions in my head."  At least, when I am not good enough it is what I suppose.  Writing, as we do, about our children, homes, and passions, we must get it right.  It is painful to be misunderstood.

Digging a bit deeper into why we feel our personal compositions do not measure up, there seems to be a cultural idea that if we are meant to do something, it will be easy and uncomplicated to us.  Natural, you know?  At least after the initial neophyte period.  But writing is often uncomfortable.  Maybe exciting and fun and interesting, but also troublesome.  Yet, whatever we write about seems pale in comparison with the vibrant inner world that motivated us to write in the first place.  Searching for words that do not exist and getting bogged down in grammatical details, rather than releasing words run with our imaginations, free and wild, makes us feel like impostors. 

It's difficult, in our busy lives, to make time for writing when it seems like we are fail to achieve even the lowest of expectations: to clearly communicate a message.  Some days, when I sit down to write a tutorial or tell you all about a craft Smootch has done, I feel like I'm doing the writer's equivalent of a barely speaking toddler's grunts and multi-vowel chants in an effort to make someone understand me.  'Ain owww, 'ain owww, 'ain owww...  Repeating myself.  Over and over again.  For this trouble, I am neglecting my children?

On top of communication difficulties, blogging, as a form of writing, presents unique complications.  Blogging demands frequency, consistency, and also novelty.  Most challenging, blogging is dangerously public.  A post is usually another word for 'rough draft' because there is no time for polish.  A rough draft out there for thousands of strangers to read and then comment on.  Now, I can't complain too much here because my readers are some of the smartest and most generous people in the world, who look beyond my often clumsy phrases to the message behind and respond to that.  Perhaps you sense my vulnerability and want to protect my shaky self esteem.  For this, I am eternally thankful. 

Still, after over four hundred posts, if I always get stage fright as my cursor hovers over the 'publish post' button - do I really want to do this? Is it good enough? - there must be something more powerful yet than my ambivalence that pushs me to do this.  What else is going on?  Why, when writing is so nerve racking and steals my time and attention away from the very things I write about, why do I still do it?

I suspect the answer is the same as why women who think they write badly, still feel driven to.  I know, from my own experience, the only difference between those women who say they want-to-blog-but-can-not-write and women who actually do blog is only a couple of evenings when the children have gone to sleep mercifully on time and the housework doesn't seem quite urgent enough yet.  A bit of time and space to oneself, a reminding of our selves as creative people and not a conglomeration of social roles.  Because the drive to say what we need to say is stronger than our self doubt. 

Not only is the compulsion to share our personal realities and experiences instinctual to humanity, we are a record keeping species after all, but we know intellectually it's actual duty to share with others the amazing things that we do.  We need to share the cure to what ails us.  To share when we have a solution.  We need to let others know about the extraordinary people we live with.

We reach out to not only say, 'I am here,' but also, 'I know stuff too!'  We are a community of women and our sharing, our writing, helps us all to survive and grow.

But, before I say any of this to a woman, who tells me she would like to blog as I do, I stop and ask, "Why is she saying this to me?"  Has she read my blog?  Does she ever listen to me talk?  Surely she knows that I take it as my personal mission to get people to do for themselves.  What other reason could she have to actually tell a DIY activist that she wants to do something but doesn't feel she can, than to hear, "Yes, you can." 

I'm pretty sure she's aware of predilection for telling people what to do.  Which means my job isn't to ponder the myriad of ways in which women silence or liberate their voices, but to just do what I do best.  Introduce her to a easy to use blogging platform, to promise to keep her kids busy for awhile so that she has a few moments to sort out her thoughts, to remind her of all the unique and interesting things she does that she has a responsibility to contribute to our cultural discussions and knowledge.  To say, it's tough and scary and exposing and so very worth it. 

Because she's brilliant.

So, lady, put yourself out there and write something, damnit.  The world need to hear what you have to say. 

plastic trees

The further I go into reading about education and home schooling, the more I get twitchy about my kid's stuff.

If I wanted to categorize my philosophical leanings, I'd put me in the uptight hippie category. We do a lot of what they call attachment parenting, and, surprising to no one, for good or bad, we are a child centered household. I got me a couple of nekkid kids for a good portion of each day, take in more live music than television, and generally let the children chose their own activities and then be available for technical support. Emotionally tuned in with healthy doses of physically staying out of their way. I'd rather see them crying because they tried but it didn't work out then to have them cry because they didn't even get a chance.  Except for the partying, I think we've got the hippie bit down.

The uptight part is that our (The Man and I) behaviors are primarily ethically driven. And it is a pain in the butt for other people, or at least they are fond of telling me so. We shop in some stores but not others. We make things ourselves when it doesn't make monetary or time sense. If we can, we'll dive for treasure and make do or just do without (almost unheard of in this time of buy everything you ever wanted right now all in one place). We drive this tiny little twelve year old car, which we just learning now, absolutely freaks out some family members who believe we are basically a baby duck on a highway full of tanks. We are vegan. Every decision becomes a long, drawn out debate on pros and cons and what is best. We don't just do it.

Uptight. We are a bit annoying this way.

Reading about educating children puts this whole new set of considerations on my life. Am I hands on, guiding and instructing, or am I hands off, letting natural curiosity direct their curriculum? What sort of environment do I provide? What does enrichment mean anyway? Should I stock my house with beautiful things (with beautiful price tags), all natural wood, organic cotton and bamboo, soft colours and textures?  

What about all the ugly among my creative manipulatives (i.e. toy shelf)? What about the dolls in night club wear with their not-BPA free faces molded into expressions of smoldering somnolence? What about the uniformly coloured emergency response figurines?  With their cocked guns and riot shields?  Do they quietly find themselves a new home, replaced by soft, blank-faced handmade companions, who serve as blank canvas for my little one's creative play?

Even if I believed I had the right to completely stage my children's environment, would I actually be able to pull it off? The plastic, the licensed, the inappropriate make their way into my home everyday, via grandparents, garage sale free boxes, roadside finds, and even, sometimes, by my own hand.

Is that bad?

I'm shooting for the middle ground. I think that if I can be an uptight hippie, I've already got the mental flexibility to pull of a balance between beautiful and garish. Organic and toxic. If my children desire big, clunky plastic monstrosities, then if they are to be found second hand for inexpensive or free, then they will have a resting place in our home, at least for a time.

Nature is a good guide. Nature isn't a positive or negative thing, it just is. It contains tongue-stopping beauty alongside heartbreaking brutality. I suspect this might be what is meant by an enriched environment. A mix of everything. Something for everyone.

Betty Be Bold pdf pattern giveaway

This is what happens when your creative director is five years old.

So be it.

I think it's safe now to offer up the latest pattern pdf for giveaway.  They are a simple little affair, just a quick pair of bloomers to be worn as either adventurous play wear or underneath a dress or pinafore for extra volume and modesty.


I'd love to show you how they look under a dress, but Smootch sort of got stuck while trying out the adventurous play feature.  

I decided to just go with the authority on this one.

The Betty Be Bold bloomers fit preschool aged girls hip size 21 1/2" to 24 1/2". For those with the skinny minnies like mine, they are an elastic waist and easily adjusted.


If you would like to win a free copy of the Betty Be Bold bloomers PDF ePattern, please leave a comment on this post. I will close the draw on Friday night (July 17) at approximately 10:00 pm MST.


Good luck :)

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Hey all, thanks for playing!  I just closed the draw and used random.org to select Dani Poppins' comment.  Thank you to everyone who said such sweet things.  

And, yes, adventerous is misspelled!  Sorry.  The words I just threw on the cover shot at the last minute to avoid confusion.  Photoshop doesn't do spell check :D  I always get busted on my spelling... thanks for keeping me on my toes!

I will have the pattern available in the shop very soon.  It will be at a laughably low price of four dollars and will arrive in your email within 24 hours of purchase.  Purchasing Little Print Designs, btw, is an excellent way to support this blog, handmade, and my little family :) 


Have a lovely weekend all!

me vs. mine

Smootch was telling me that when boys grow up they become men.  And when girls grow up they become people.

When I was a child, it was assumed that children and adults are intrinsically different and natural enemies.  All children knew that adults were befuddled idiots at best and, more likely, viciously tyrannical.  All adults knew that the children couldn't be trusted; give the kid an inch and they'll knock you down and swipe your Visa card on the way out.

Don't believe me?  I grew up in the '80s.  Try a small sampling of conventional wisdom through popular films.  In The Breakfast Club, the weird chickie says, "When you get grow up, your heart dies."  The principal in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, who is actually hunting Ferris in the movie, says, "I did not achieve this position in life by having some snot-nosed punk leave my cheese out in the wind."

Don't talk to me about Children of the Corn.

With this in mind, you can believe me when I say that my biggest parenting challenge is trust.


Trusting her.


And trusting me.


I work very hard at both.

So, when I ask Smootch if she'll pose for me so I can get a few good pictures to demonstrate the new bloomer pattern - a routine we are both getting overly familiar with - and she says, 'Hey, let's take photos of the new bloomers while I'm swinging,' I think, ookkayy, maybe she's onto something. 


I trust she believes this will produce some good pictures for the pattern cover.

 Or, maybe, the kid doesn't give a rat's tuckus about my photos and knows what buttons of mine to push in order to skip the work and get straight to the fun stuff.
 

Just a thought.

BOOM! There goes my cool.

The heat.

Is getting to us.

There are so many things that are not possible when it's hot outside.

Sewing, when the part of your hand where your fingers connect is sticky and sweaty, is not happening.

Crafting with glitter, glue or clay is a no.

Book pages stick to our fingers.  There are greasy, sweat marks on every paper in the house.

The heat.  It makes us all a bit tetchy.

There are violent storms every evening.

And I hate the freakin' spray park.

POP!

If you can not be constructive, you can always blow something up.  

Hope everyone is enjoying firework season.