You may have recently seen this fabulous new book making the blog rounds these days, and its with good reason. Homemade: 101 Crafts and Activities to Do with Kids by Rae Grant is something we all should have in our stash for summer home with the kids. It's filled with simple, inspiring projects to do with kids of all ages, and I breathed a happy sigh when I got it in the mail, cause I will be loving books like this at the end of the week when the kids are out of school (only TWO more days of making school lunches, but who's counting?)
Rae has divided the book into sections of hand sewing and embroidery, paper crafts, jewelry making, baking, building things, and toys, games and pastimes. I love the old school feel of so many of these projects and many require a minimum amount of materials, much of which we have on hand. For starters, I've already decided we should keep a moon journal (we can actually see the moon in Seattle in the summer) and make something wooden, that requires a hammer and nails. I would have had Emma review this book, but quite frankly I hid it from her when it came. This little gem is staying tucked away until we all have time to savor it.
So many of the simple projects in this book are the type of things that many of us adults may have learned in school, or in summer bible school, camp, etc. I'm sad to say that I see no Home Ec classes on Emma's middle school list, it seems to be dying out, replaced by other things deemed more important in a kid's school curriculum. I think I owe it to my kids to them a few of these basic (fun) things.
The publisher is offering 2 copies to give away to a commenter on this post. International shipping is ok! I think it would be lovely if in your post you could tell me something you learned in Home Ec class (or wish you'd learned), something you remember to this day. Let's see, for me, that would be learning how to sew on a button. I also learned how to burn things during the cooking portion of the class, but we all start somewhere. (I can, at times, still burn just as well as I did then.)
I'll draw names at the end of the week and notify the winners. In the meantime, you can find out more about Rae and her other wonderful books over at her blog, My Little Hen.
Thanks so much Rae, you've made me look even more forward to summer!
Winners have been chosen and notified, thank you to all who commented!
