Wise Craft

news

 

Good morning! A few things to share-

- I created a paper flower Mother's Day project for the folks at Parents magazine for the May 09 issue, trickling out to newsstands now (just as an aside, I love working with these guys!). These flowers are simple, fun, and pretty to do with kids (Emma and I had a whole afternoon of fun making these as I was developing this project). A bouquet of these (maybe with a perfume-scented magazine strip) would be something I know I would love for Mother's Day (hint). My personal recommendation is to recycle JCrew catalogs for these. Since they are out of my price range these days, its a fun way to enjoy the colors!

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- The new Boomerang website is up! Go have a look! We have been working behind the scenes for a few months now, creating a new look and feel for Boomerang and we are so proud of how its coming together. As you may know from reading this space, Boomerang has been a valuable piece of learning and enjoyment for my kids long before I knew Dave Strohm (the creator), so I'm quite passionate about this project, as a consumer and as a brand consultant.  The graphics you see on the site were designed by Story Trading (props to my brilliant husband for his hand drawing, and to Shawn, for the current issue's imagery on the homepage), the content is still all Dave and his crew in the Boomerang studios. We are working on the final element~ adding some sample audio clips~ to the site today. After that, we will continue to add in some fun things for our young Boomerang fans who visit our space. In the meantime, check our and join our facebook page, where we will keep you update on some exciting things we have in the pipeline.

To help celebrate our website, Eren and Stefani are having a Boomerang giveaway over at their new collaborative blog, The Magnifying Glass, an online nature journal for kids. I bookmarked The Magnifying Glass as soon as I saw it, ts full of all kinds of ideas for getting our kids (and ourselves) outside. Something we all need to do more of.

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- I am excited to be starting a new collaboration with nonchalantmom, as a contributing author on their blog. Founded by Carina Schott, pictured above from a Domino Magazine spread, an extensive background in the fashion industry, working with companies such as The Gap, Baby Gap, Banana Republic, and Espret, she created nonchalantmom as a well-designed, modern, hip, very cool online space for moms and their kids. I will be posting there on a continued basis about living a creative life with kids, and have put an easy-to-find button over on my left sidebar <---. Here's a little background from Carina-

"I know my story will sound cliché, but the idea behind “Nonchalant Mom” is anything but commonplace. When we had our son Sander in 2002 and we decided it was time to move so we packed up and moved ourselves from Manhattan to Rhode Island. I found myself with a lot of energy, 20 years experience in the fashion industry behind me, and no one with whom to share my love for natural living to raise my son. I also found it hard to network and get information on raising my son as naturally as possible. We still go all the way back to New York just to see our pediatrician, Dr. Michel Cohen, because his approach is laid back, and he let us bring up Sander according to our own intuition (although he laughed every time we told him that Sander was still sleeping with us).

Nonchalant Mom was born from a need to find great toys, clothes and information on natural parenting, all in one place. It wasn’t on the internet yet and I knew I could bring these ideals together, and make it FUN! I also wanted to meet other parents that enjoy these things, and create a community of “natural parents” so I don’t feel so alone. I know you are all out there, so lets get together!"

Nonchalantmom has posted  a little interview I did with them over at their blog today. (correction: its not up yet, I'll let you know when it is) edited to say its up!

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On the homefront here, the weather turned gorgeous here in Seattle over the weekend, and we spent every minute we could outside. I spent a lot of time getting the kid's outdoor spaces ready for the warmer days ahead...putting air in delated soccer balls, repairing or getting rid of toys that weren't working...but the biggest project was getting our play structure/clubhouse/treehouse ready for some serious meeting time. The process of working on the cleanup inspired a whole string of crafts (I attribute this energy burst to some outdoor time and Vitamin D as well). I wanted to share these here on the blog, and have made a new category, The Treehouse Appreciation Society. You will see our society projects popping up in the next few weeks (many are still in the works).

out now

 


The Holiday Crafts issue of Better Homes and Gardens is out on the newsstands now (yes, it really is not too early to be thinking about Christmas if you're making stuff.) I knitted up these little sweaters for them way back in the Spring, I just love the way they turned out. Seeing them in the magazine makes me want to start knitting more of them. I had some grand ideas about knitting some of these up for the shop, we'll see if that happens. In the meantime, all the directions to make your own are included in the issue, as well as some sweet projects from some other familiar talents I love. Betz has a picture of the cover here, so you'll know what to look for.

And for something entirely different-

I finally scanned a picture of the Olympic Gold Medal project I did for the August issue of Parents Magazine. I don't know if your kids have loved watching the Olympics as much as we have, but regardless, these are very fun to make. We used Sculpey baking clay in gold for our medals, and kept the thickness around 1/4" or a little thicker. We pressed in the sequins, poked a hole with a skewer, baked according to the recommendations, and threaded a ribbon through. Voila! (The link to the online instructions for this project are on my left blog sidebar, just click on 'Parents Magazine'.) I can't say enough about Parents Magazine, its carried me through the birth and growth of my kids and many of my friends. (Because, contrary to what I thought, I don't know everything about parenting.)

And I once again want to thank those superfabulous Mixtape ladies for the opportunity to do the cover for issue #5. Inspired by our collaborative blog eight by eight, they sent a box of materials to Daria and me (which you can read more about here). We independently came up with the 2 cover projects (one is shown on each side of the issue). Buy this zine, its good. There's info on lino cut printing (my new obsession), vintage embroidery, ideas for scanned artwork, eco-ideas for kid's birthday parties, and more. You can order your copy here.

Thanks to everyone I worked with on these projects!

 

happy food

(tomato mozzarella salad, watermelon, corn on the cob)

"Dinner's ready!"

I have said here before and will say again how much I love the ease of feeding my kids during the summer months. If your kids are like mine, many food rules apply, such as the one where the cook must remember that foods cannot be mixed together at all, and raw veggies are better than cooked. They will try new things, but with mixed results (Ian's newest trick is to try one bite, say "mmmmm!  its pretty good"....then refuse to eat any more of it.  Clever kid...)

I remember eating corn on the cob often as a kid and loving it. What a fun way to eat a vegetable, right? I also remember spending all afternoon shucking corn out in the backyard more than once (for the record, that was not fun mom, and did I ever get money for helping you with that?) Emma has finally discovered my childhood joy of eating corn on the cob after trying it for the first time recently (what's so scary anyway?).  To me, and now to her, its the essence of summertime eating. We combined what you see in that photo above with bunless cheeseburgers, our usual way to eat burgers at home (funny how my kids will probably grow up considering a bun an anomaly).

The end of supper, of course!, comes the dessert. And we discovered the easiest ice cream cake ever in the July issue of Real Simple (the "fake it" recipe).  I found the recipe here online, its so easy and really good. The photo above is ours during the construction. I'm happy to say it did, in the end, turn out almost as pretty as the one in the magazine. The only addition I made was to add a layer of chopped chocolate in the center of the cake, because I love cold chunks of chocolate. The kids loved it, and so did Peter, who really prefers kid food to adult food anyway.

(Greek yogurt, honey, roasted -not salted- almonds, golden raspberries)

Its such a break for the cook during the summer months, to gather food instead of cook food (well, I cooked the corn). I was thinking the other night how so much of what we eat in the summer really is happy food. And so basic. And so so good. 

Thank you summer.

~other news~

I had the honor of picking the newest word assignment for wordplay and everyone has opened the word I sent, cover.  I am dying to see what they come up with, I felt there were just tons of possibilities there.  This is the third round of wordplay, they have done some amazing things with the other words.

Daria and I had the fun assignment of doing the cover projects for Mixtape zine Issue #5, inspired by eight by eight. This issue is the biggest yet, those girls have been busy.  It'll be good reading, just in time to get our late summer creative juices flowing. You can preorder a copy here. (I will admit that summer has slowed me down a little and I'm a wee bit behind on June's project.  I need to finish it.  There....I said it. I haven't done it yet.  I started!  But haven't finished it....  But I will!)

I worked with the folks at Parents Magazine a few months back (a bit thank you to their wonderful lifestyle editor Amanda, you are the greatest!) and created a gold medal craft for kids inspired by the Summer Olympics. It is in the August 2008 issue, the "Make It" section. Be sure and check it out, its an easy craft for kids and what kid doesn't need their own gold medal? My kids have really been into the Olympic Games in the past, I'm sure we will all be watching.

I have done plenty of sewing as of late, and I will share soon.

All shop orders placed Wednesday shipped out yesterday.  There isn't much that's more satisfying than dropping a whole bunch of packages off at the post office. I live for that kind of closure.

Okay, its 3:20 and I just realized my son still hasn't gotten dressed for the day.  I should go!  Have a great weekend.