creativity week:: 5 :: hand planes in progress

I am joining Erin Goodman for a chat on Facebook at 8am PT tomorrow morning. Join us!

Bigger, more exciting, longer term projects have begun around here. Homemade hand planes for the kids, for example. The long pieces of steel arrived last week and the creative trio (that would be everyone but me, lately) set to work creating their plane irons by cutting it into pieces, sharpening them, and, just for fun, giving them some personal detail.

(The plane that the heart plane iron (Lala's) is sitting in is just being used for display. The planes, in a block, Krenov style are yet to be cut and assembled.)

creativity week:: 4 :: branch coat rack

Our trees got pruned at the end of last summer and since then, Lala had been eyeing one of the branches not yet claimed for the fireplace or other projects. It was too "branchy" for most of our uses. Lala saw the use in that.

A few days ago, I came in and found that she and Mike had designed and executed a child sized coat rack. It now sits by our front door, and while we didn't need more hooks there, I find the kids are hanging their coats on their own. Some of those lower branches? Perfect for boots.

creativity week:: 3 :: stained glass eco art

Last week, when Lala was home sick, towards the end of the day, she was feeling a bit better and wanted to take advantage of some (now, sadly rare) alone time with mamma. She picked from our selection of kid art/craft books, flipped through, pointed, and said "I want to make this with you, mamma." So we made.

This wasn't our first time making "stained glass" from glass jars and tissue paper, but we certainly had not done it in a very long time. (My parents have a candle holder she made when she was 3 or 4, just in this way.)

The results were simply, beautifully satisfying.

The inspiration came from the book shown, Eco Art by Laurie Carlson, and is full of all sorts of wildly fun recycle crafts. (We have another crafting book from this series, which we also like.)

creativity week:: 2 :: painted pots

Each of my kids received a flower bulb in their Christmas stocking, from Santa (or one of his sweet elves...I am going to remember this for next year). Soon after, we took an outing to a closing local plant nursery, and each child chose a succulent. And soon after that, their star/heart charts earned each of them a reward...flower pots for their living goodies.

Eager crafters that they are (just about every medium has been asked for or used recently), out came all the paints. (I was thinking decoupage could have been fun for this one, too.)

Bulbs and succulents + pots + paint = Two happily entertained kiddos and four beautiful additions to the sun shelf above our kitchen sink.

creativity week:: 1:: ABCs

Despite my inability to sit down and get any kind of sewing done (the mending and project piles are big), as I mentioned previously, this house has been so busy with creativity lately. There were the holiday gifts and the play clips, the work bench, and so much more. I have not been able to get the glitter cleaned up and you know what? I don't care. My dining room sparkles.

I am still hesitant in my claim of artistry, but creativity? Now that is a word I can wrap my heart and soul around.

I keep starting all these posts about projects and thought to myself...this week? It's creativity week. Care to join me?

Above, scrap wood alphabet tiles. This idea came from Lala's school, where, during some classroom volunteer time, I was asked to sort and bag the alphabet tiles. There were so many missing, I brought them home, showed them to Mike, and in 15 minutes, he had cut blanks to replace those missing. Lala and I filled in the letters, and bagged them to return to school. Of course, Mike cut enough for us to keep some, too. Now, Lala just starts mixing and matching letters to make words. I love the tangible aspect to learning this offers.

(If you have the tools and inclination, these tiles are 1.5 inches wide, 2 inches tall, and about 0.25 inches thick. You can mark the letters as you like with paint or pen. We used a Sharpie. One side has the capital of the letter and the other side has the lowercase of the letter.)

this week

The way to start a day is this-- Go outside and face the east and greet the sun with some kind of blessing or chant or song that you made yourself and keep for early morning
~ from The Way to Start a Day by Byrd Baylor and Peter Parnall
(I thought of this sky fire photo when my parents gave this book to Isabella.)

Fruit from the CSA box. We don't get a CSA box weekly. In the fall, I happened upon a coupon that allowed us a box for half price through a CSA that permitted us to receive boxes when we like with produce we like. Choices! Well, this plus two adults committed to an increased plant consumption plus stomach flu = hello CSA box.

Finally! Winter! Rain! So desperately missed and needed.

Another sleepy sickie. She asked for a fire and immediately stretched out in front of it.

I couldn't avoid laundry anymore. Stomach flu made for 3 days worth of laundry within 3 hours. Just a glimpse of reality and a shout of gratitude for my washer and dryer (the latter of which we don't use much of the year).


Hello, Friday! Nice to see you. It has been an odd, slow, strangely nice week. I am looking forward to the weekend, rain and all. Have a nice one!

exhale. behind the blog.

Erin (Exhale. Return to Center.) is one of the most kind, real bloggers I have had the pleasure to get to know since I entered this blogging community. I cannot remember how I found my way to her blog, but once I did, I thought "now this is someone I really relate to." Her family, like ours, is trying to living naturally and purposefully within the boundaries of a modern world and public schools.

I often find myself nodding along to Erin's posts thinking "exactly!" or "how timely!" That is how I feel about her 10-Day Family Re-Charge. We have signed up, of course. Join us!

Today, I am excited to be part of Erin's Behind the Blog podcast! Listening to oneself is rather mortifying. Thank you for including me and stretching me a bit, Erin!

Please ask any questions you might have...I will be happy to respond.

(Oh, and I feel the need to clarify a comment I make in the interview...I do sometimes post photos of people without permission, but I try never to do so in an identifiable way. I might post a back, body part or from an angle or distance that is indistinguishable!)

mike and henry david teach

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

~Henry David Thoreau

There has been so much creativity happening around here, especially by each of these three, together and apart. Mike's creativity has been a joyous glimmer of light in his whole being, re-ignited by the gift making he did for the kids' holiday gifts. The kids? Well, aren't kids just naturally creative?


What I have loved watching is the creativity that happens when they are together. Mike is the most incredible teacher. When our kids are interested, he interrupts what he is doing and engages with them fully, at their level. On this occasion, I had mentioned something to Mike about the kids' workbench, in response to Finnian's comments about a little friend's workbench. I took this as a sign that I needed to move the bench back into a more accessible location, to make it interesting again. After I did, I found Finnian happily working away. Mike joined him with a vice clamp in hand, one of the tools Finnian had been coveting on his friend's tool bench. With both kids "helping," they set to work installing the clamp on the kid's bench. Before they could attach it, they needed to modify a piece that had an edge sticking up, so Mike went off to select a hand plane.


Mike loves old tools, hand tools, and old hand planes most especially. He brought one out, showed which one to the kids, started planing, all the while talking about it. He explained to the kids that the plane he was using was much like what Henry David might have used in building his house. We had just read Henry David's House, a book created from an excerpt by Henry David Thoreau on the building of his house by Walden Pond.

Now that is the mark of a good teacher...bringing it full circle.

weekend

We had a really nice weekend, despite a battle with the stomach flu. During it, I found our little guy out cold in a couple of sweet spots around the house. Uncle Stian's bed and the book nook.

Hope your weekend was as lovely, but germ free.

up close

Guess who got a macro camera lens for Christmas? (It just arrived in the mail.)
I am giddily getting to know my new toy!

(Thank you, Mike, for the gift! Thank you, Dad, for the fabulous advice. I am pleased!)