Archive for July, 2009

Lovely books illustrated by Grace Lin

July 30, 2009 at 7:17 am · Filed under Books

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I stumbled across these two books at the library last week and am so glad I did. They’re wonderful! Sweet and colorful and so much more than just color and shape books. Both are written by Roseanne Thong and illustrated by Grace Lin.

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From Red is a Dragon:

Red are melons
cool and sweet
Red are lychees
a summer treat

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From Round is a Mooncake:

Rectangles are
inking stones
Paintbrush racks
and mobile phones

Since I’ve fallen in love with Grace Lin’s illustrations, I did a little search on her. Turns out she’s illustrated (and written!) quite a lot. There’s a great interview and bio here at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast that also describes a number of her other books. Very worth checking out. Look for the picture of Lissy’s Friends — that’s the book I want to find next!

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Hallway hopscotch and a new dress for Maia

July 29, 2009 at 8:30 am · Filed under Other Fun Stuff, Sewing

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I did another t-shirt to dress transformation for Maia, using one of her stained shirts. This is my third now, although really I should get better at stain removal! This one had a stain on the top part as well so I added a heart applique first to cover it. The skirt is double layered — the bottom layer is gauze-y and somewhat see through so I added apron panels in both the front and back for modesty and for extra flippy, girly appeal.

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Here’s the back of the dress.

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And what to do on a hot and humid, grumpy (me) day when I am too tired to take her to the playground but Maia has extra energy to burn? Make hallway hopscotch with construction paper, masking tape, and markers. It was definitely a hit. She’s currently lobbying for a permanent version.

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Vote for Peter Reynolds, author of The Dot

July 28, 2009 at 6:42 am · Filed under Books

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I’ve written before about The Dot, one of my all time fave children’s books about creativity and confidence. Well guess what? The author Peter Reynolds and his company FableVision are up for Entrepreneur Magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year award. How cool is that?! I just voted for him and thought I’d give you the link in case any of you want to head over and vote yourself.

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Overcoming my fear of quilting

July 27, 2009 at 7:09 am · Filed under Baby, Sewing

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I don’t know why I should fear the quilting foot, but I do. Or did, I should say.

I put off quilting the layers of Maia’s hand quilt for such a ridiculously long time that I’m embarrassed to even post about this project. This is a quilt I started when I was pregnant with Maia — over four years ago! Ack! I probably should have made a nice baby-sized quilt as my first quilting project, but no, I had to tackle a large one (it’s twin-sized or a bit larger). And since I didn’t have the quilting skills or confidence for such a big project, I did just a little bit at a time. A spurt of energy and enthusiasm about once a year and here we are four years later, almost finished.

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I finally got out the quilting foot, studied the diagram and figured out how to attach it to my sewing machine — and of course it wasn’t that hard. And using it wasn’t any harder than using a regular foot. So all that fuss and stalling was for nothing. I did the quilting in a day. I decided to go easy on myself and keep it simple (no, I didn’t stitch around each hand).

I still have to bind the edges but am determined to do that very soon. I need to finish my first baby’s quilt before the next baby arrives! And since I did something special for Maia, I feel I should make a special quilt (although maybe smaller!) for this baby. Any ideas? I haven’t come up with any good ideas myself and it’s something I should probably start working on, especially if I want it finished before baby number two turns four.

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Oh, and while I was on a quilting spree this weekend I made this simple quilt for the baby with recycled materials, flannel on one side and a cotton floral print on the other. I used a thrifted cotton mattress pad as the inside layer so it’s pretty thick. I’ll probably use it as a floor blanket, although Maia’s already asked if she can share it with the baby, so it might double as a lap quilt this winter.

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Tie dyeing t-shirts with colored tissue paper

July 23, 2009 at 2:31 pm · Filed under Art Projects, Crafts, Toddler Art Group

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Yesterday, for our art group project, we “tie dyed” t-shirts with colored tissue paper following this tutorial at Make and Takes.

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We had the kids get their t-shirts wet in the sink first and wring them out before bringing them back to the studio. I had baskets of bleeding tissue paper pieces set out as well as a spray bottle of water (and later, bowls of water with brushes). I thought that cutting the tissue paper into squares ahead of time would be easier with a group, but in retrospect, I might have the kids tear them just because I think the finished product would look better.

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They had fun arranging the tissue paper and spraying or brushing them with water. The bleeding tissue paper dyes the fabric underneath fairly quickly — some colors quicker than others.

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Here, the tissue paper has all been removed and we’re using a sponge brush to add the distilled white vinegar.

One problem I noticed is that since the shirts were wet the color continued to run even after the tissue paper was removed — this wasn’t much of an issue with the random designs the kids made but was with more specific patterns or designs (one of the moms tried some flowers and dots on onesies). I think the solution would be to dry them quickly after making a design you’re satisfied with. OR, maybe to use regular tissue paper rather than bleeding tissue paper (I think the onesie in the original tutorial was made using regular tissue paper).

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I set the color by putting them in the dryer (another option is using an iron). As often seems to happen, the colors dried lighter.

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The colors even bled through to the backs of the shirts, although not as intensely.

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Wood sculptures part II

July 22, 2009 at 7:32 am · Filed under Art Projects

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This is the Las Vegas version of our scrap wood sculptures.

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Justin and Nathan went home after art group last week and continued working on their sculptures over the next couple of days, adding paint, glitter glue, googly eyes, colored pasta, and various other collage items.

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I think it’s time for us to get out our paints and collage tray…

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A day with a friend

July 21, 2009 at 8:12 am · Filed under cooking

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Maia’s friend Stella spent the day with us yesterday. We baked bread,

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drew,

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had a picnic and watched fish at the arboretum,

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and finally, after naps, ate a bread and butter snack.

Grandma’s Granary Bread

3 3/4 to 4 3/4 cups all-purpose flour or bread flour

2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

2 packs dry yeast

1 Tbsp salt

1/3 cup honey

3 Tbsp butter

2 1/2 cups hot tap water

2-3 Tbsp toasted wheat germ

Stir to combine 2 cups all-purpose flour, undissolved yeast, and salt. Add honey and butter, then water. Mix with whisk. Add 1 cup more all-purpose flour, 1 cup whole wheat flour, and toasted wheat germ. Stir in remaining whole wheat flour with a spoon, then enough more white to make a soft dough which leaves the sides of the bowl. Knead on countertop. Place bowl over dough and let rest for 20 minutes. Punch down.

Shape into two loaves and put in greased loaf pans. Brush with olive oil. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2-24 hours. Let stand at room temperature while heating oven to 400 degrees F. Cut 1/4 inch deep v-shaped slashes on tops of loaves. Bake approximately 40 minutes.

This bread is especially good toasted with butter and honey! I usually slice one of the loaves to keep in the freezer since our family doesn’t eat a lot of bread. I also play around with the recipe depending on time, inclination, and memory.

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Cats and clowns, recent drawings in our house

July 20, 2009 at 7:34 am · Filed under Children's Art

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Maia’s chalkboard gets sporadic use. She’ll draw on it intensely for a day or two, then completely ignore it for a couple of weeks, only to start drawing on it again. Recently she drew a series of cats on it.

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As well as on the driveway.

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And a clown on her easel. This is the first time I’ve seen her fill in entire areas with color — I always like seeing new stages in her development!

What are your kids drawing?

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Scrap wood sculptures with the art group

July 16, 2009 at 6:58 am · Filed under Art Projects

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We made wood sculptures with the art group yesterday using frame pieces, popsicle sticks, and some other small scrap wood pieces. The kids glued all these together and to heavy mat board (remnants from the same frame shop). Justin’s is above and below — he was really into the project.

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We used regular all-purpose school glue, both in squeeze bottles and in open dishes with paintbrushes.

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Gil working on his sculpture.

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His older sister Josie carefully made about 7 or 8 stand-alone mini sculptures and set them along the terrace wall to dry.

Have any of you done this? I think it would be fun to paint them afterwards, although I don’t know that we will. It would also be nice to do these on a wooden base (rather than the mat board).

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It has potential — styrofoam printing for young kids

July 15, 2009 at 6:42 am · Filed under Art Projects

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I’ve been wanting to try printing with styrofoam for a while now and finally got over my guilt complex enough to buy a pack of styrofoam plates for a $1.59. I realize they will never, ever decompose and that this doesn’t exactly jive with the other efforts I’ve been making to be more environmentally friendly. I guess my excitement over the possibility of a new art project wins out over environmental responsibility sometimes. I kept thinking I’d buy something in styrofoam and just use that and then at least it would be recycled, but I guess I just don’t buy stuff packaged in styrofoam. Anyway, clearly all this over-explaining and justifying means I’m NOT over the guilt. But let’s move on for now, shall we?

First, Maia and I drew our designs. We used pencils, both mechanical and regular, and pressed hard to gouge designs into the styrofoam. Maia especially liked to poke holes straight through the plates.

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We cut the plate rims off, to make a flat printing surface. Next time I’d do this first, then draw the designs. Also, I’d use a drawing implement that makes wider lines — maybe the back of a colored pencil (ie a pencil with no eraser) or a chopstick.

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Then we used the rollers to spread paint over the design…

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and pressed the styrofoam paint side down onto paper, rubbing it gently to transfer the image.

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Sorry about these photos by the way. I had the camera on a weird setting and didn’t realize until later.

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We did a bunch of these and had fun, but our images didn’t transfer super well since the paint collected in the tiny grooves. I’m thinking that using a wider drawing implement would solve this. Another option would be to use a proper rubber brayer rather than our fuzzy paint rollers. I actually have one but didn’t think to get it out in time. Any other tips from those of you who have done styrofoam printing before?

I’d try this again but so far I think that the monoprinting we did using acrylic box frames was the most successful young child printing endeavor we’ve tried (and more environmentally friendly!).

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